“What does the song mean? My whole life, I don’t know what this song means. It means ‘Should old acquaintance be forgot.’ Does that mean that we should forget old acquaintances or does it mean that if we should happen to forget them, we should remember them which is not possible because we already forgot?”
“Well maybe it just means that maybe we should remember that we forgot them or something. Anyway, it’s about old friends.”
Yep. It’s about old friends, and getting drunk with those old friends, but not buying those old friends any beer because, look, do you really know them that well? And can’t they buy their own damn beer? Yeah. They can.
Basically, the song is asking you a rhetorical question: Should you forget your old acquaintances? Never think of them? Never think of the olden days or the days of yore or yesteryear? The answer is a resounding NO! Of course not. You should get drunk with those old acquaintances and talk about the good ol’ days! That’s what you should do!
The full sentiment of the song is lost to many of us, since in these here united states, we only sing the first verse. As a nation of drunk asses on New Year’s Eve, we don’t have time to sing eleventy verses of some Scottish song we don’t understand. There’s drink to be drunk, and some hot guy or gal with whom we want to accidentally make out and then never speak of again.
Anyway, read the lyrics for yourself. I’m fairly certain the song is about getting crunk, Scottish-style, but what do I know? I’m a known crazy person.
| The English Version | The English Version in a Bagpipes Accent |
| Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind ? Should old acquaintance be forgot, and days of old lang syne ?
And surely you’ll buy your pint cup!
We two have run about the slopes,
We two have paddled in the stream,
And there’s a hand my trusty friend !
|
Shid ald akwentans bee firgot, an nivir brocht ti mynd? Shid ald akwentans bee firgot, an ald lang syn*?
An sheerly yil bee yur pynt-staup!
We twa hay rin aboot the braes,
We twa hay pedilt in the burn,
An thers a han, my trustee feer!
|
The message is pretty clear, isn’t it? Don’t forget your old acquaintances! Don’t forget the old days! Meet up with some old friends; go out and pick some daisies; maybe paddle in a stream, hold hands, and then go to the pub!
Not so fast, though — surely you’re buying your own pint, and surely I’m buying my own pint, and yes, I will stop calling you Shirley, but look — I haven’t seen you in a while, and frankly, I’m not sure if I like you enough to buy you a pint (and dissing my Shirley joke didn’t really help your “buy me a damn pint” cause.) So why don’t you go buy your beer, I’ll buy my beer, and then we can drink our separate respective beers and talk about auld lang syne aka the good old days aka back in the day! And then later when we’re good and sloshed, we’ll hold hands and drink some more! (But I’m still not buying you a beer, so back off already.)
That’s what the lyrics mean! Right?
No wait.
Upon a reread, I think the song is saying that you should skip all the daisy picking and paddling around because that’s dumb — you should just get drunk with your old friends and talk about what y’all have been up to, and you’ll come to find that everyone is up to the same shit: picking fine daisies, running around the slopes (skiing?? golfing??), wandering many a weary foot, paddling in the stream from morning til dinner (why? For fishing? In a stream? While paddling? Something doesn’t add up. No wonder Scottish people are drunk all the time.) Also, there’s a sea roaring between you. I bet the sea is a metaphor for distance, hence the old acquaintance business.
I think that’s it.
Or is it? I don’t know. I just spent a half hour trying to figure out how to add tables to this post. I’m not exactly an expert on anything. Besides, I’ve never really thought about what the song means. I’m just spit-ballin’ here.
Point is, go out, get drunk (or not) and hang out with friends (or not) and just wait until midnight — if the world doesn’t end, then go to sleep and wake up and curse yourself for having drunk so much the night before (or not).
[videos after the jump]And just because I like you:
You’re welcome.
UPDATE: Just because freelancer and General Stuck asked, and I’m nothing if not agreeable (yeah right!):
[cross-posted here at Angry Black Lady Chronicles]
[Happy New Year everyone! Try to keep the shenanigans to a respectable level, will ya? -ABL P.S. FYWP.]
General Stuck
Happy New Year ABL!! So glad you made your way to post on this blog
I think it means – Drink Up!
freelancer
I can’t believe you didn’t post Jimi.
No worries though. You’re a new friend.
Also, the top quote is When Harry Met Sally, right? Yeah, I’m a freaking savant when it comes to movie quotes.
General Stuck
@freelancer:
I do second that. Not a Prince fan. Jimi is Gawd though.
sherifffruitfly
What is this issue some people have with somebody buying them a beer?
demimondian
I’ve always taken the Burns poem to talk about re-acquaintance — we wandered the hills together, and picked the “daisies”, and been friends — but that was a long time ago, and this is a chance to see you again, and celebrate those times.
By the way, if you’re interested, the original Burns tune is not sung any more; the only performer I’ve ever heard sing it was Jean Redpath.
Lysana
“Auld Lang Syne” means “old long since” in Lallans Scots. So it’s a song about nostalgia for old friends and yep, drinking with them.
I have over half a dozen versions of it, all using the current melody, but now I must find Jean Redpath’s.
c u n d gulag
ABL,
Four all sang limes…
WAHevAH…
YAPPY HEW NEAR!!!
c u n d gulag
HIC!
SiubhanDuinne
Earlier I read Nooner’s column on Auld Lang Syne. (No link, but you can find it over to Sully’s place if you scroll down a bit.)
Hmmm. . . Nooner or ABL? ABL or PN?
I blieve I’ll take ABL, thanks.
Happy New Year to everyone. I’m seeing it in with red wine and dark chocolate.
agrippa
yes, happy new year.
There was a bleak time – which need not detain anyone, and will not – when this tune meant nothing [ and, at the same time, meant evrything] – but, now it does mean something.
It is a time to remember. it is, also, a time of renewal.
stuckinred
peas ya’ll
SiubhanDuinne
@stuckinred: peas and hominy.
Chris
Yes, “old long since”, or “old long ago”. Hence the modern translation would be “nostalgia”.
JGabriel
So. Is the first decade of the third millennia fucking over yet?
‘Cause that decade fucking SUCKED.
.
Yutsano
@stuckinred: Blackeyed or it don’t count.
Angry Black Lady
@General Stuck: thanks General! It’s been (95%) fun posting over here! :D
@freelancer: yes! it is When Harry Met Sally. You are a gentleman and a scholar.
@SiubhanDuinne: thanks for the vote of confidence!
Peas out, y’all!
Angry Black Lady
@Yutsano: damn straight! and there better be some ham hocks in there too!
JGabriel
HAPPY FUCKIN’ NEW YEAR, ALL Y’ALL!
(Your server clock is a minute slow, by the way.)
.
JGabriel
Hello? Anyone posting in the new year, yet?
.
Yutsano
@Angry Black Lady: Nom! I’m eating pizza but suddenly chicken and waffles with a big side of blackeyed peas sounds GOOD.
MeDrewNotYou
Happy New Year!
Steeplejack
@JGabriel:
I could be crazy, but the Times Square drop seemed about 10 seconds slow, at least according to my Naval Observatory-synched wristwatch.
ETA: Infrastructure decay or me with undiagnosed OCD? We report, you decide.
freelancer
Happy New Year John Cole, and everyone else on the East Coast/ Eastern Standard Time
demimondian
@Angry Black Lady: Hoppin’ John, FTW. None of your namby-pamby field peas, damn it; rice or NOTHING!
Steeplejack
@efgoldman:
Touché.
Sent you a video to cleanse the palate after the Statler Brothers.
Steeplejack
@efgoldman:
I think on that one the music was canned but Mitch was really singing. But, yeah, the audio/vidio synch was all out of, er, synch. Anyway, good tune. It’s hard to find much Mitch Ryder stuff on YouTube. Strange. Really would like to find “Little Latin Lupe Lu.”
ETA: And you had to like the go-go dancers!
asiangrrlMN
I don’t drink, and I try to forget the old days as quickly as possible! So, um, Wolverines!
A Humble Lurker
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8ppoy6OEYU&translated=1
Happy New Year, y’all!!
Anne Laurie
Not so metaphorical. Rabby Burns was writing after the Clearances were well on the way to breaking up clans and communities, when the young and the healthy were forced to emigrate or starve. New Years, near the point of midewinter darkness when the remnants of the population had the enforced idleness to sit & contemplate the loss of all those who were as thoroughly “gone” as though they’d been exiled to the far side of the moon. Getting maudlin drunk in remembrance of lost loved ones is an eternal Celtic tradition, of course, but in Burns’ day it was also a political statement. Kind of like all those nice, sentimental African-American spirituals — they seemed harmless, quaintly rustic, to the slaveowners.
wmd
+5
You’re the best thing to happen to Cole’s blog since I first came here. Keep it up ABL!
anna missed
I would interpret the song a little different. Seems to me that “may old acquaintance be forgot?” means – under certain drunken (or otherwise desperate) circumstances – lets give the old flame another run under the sheets. Mostly, referring to the next couple of lines, because we’re separate and independent people now and need’nt entangle ourselves in all the horseshit reality that in another life, tore ourselves apart. So lets just dispense with all that baggage crap, get drunk, get naked, and do it again for old time sake. You know because it so much easier that way, and a lot more fun.
Maody
Good morning ABL, tx btw. I actually love Auld Lang Syne. Here is a version sung by Dougie MacLean just as Burns wrote it. WAKE UP! Time for greens, black eyed peas, cornbread, hominy and rice.
AdamK
I planned to have a glass of sherry last night, but I was sleepy and went to bed at 10:00.
Kat
Auld Lang Syne
The song’s Scots title may be translated into English literally as “old long since”, or more idiomatically, “long long ago”, “days gone by” or “old times”. Consequently “For auld lang syne”, as it appears in the first line of the chorus, is loosely translated as “for (the sake of) old times”.
Around 1788, Robert Burns sent a copy of the original song to the Scots Musical Museum with the remark, “The following song, an old song, of the olden times, and which has never been in print, nor even in manuscript until I took it down from an old man”. Some of the lyrics were indeed “collected” rather than composed by the poet; the ballad “Old Long Syne” printed in 1711 by James Watson shows considerable similarity in the first verse and the chorus to Burns’ later poem, and is almost certainly derived from the same “old song”.
The verse below hints that the song’s popularity in the 18th century may well have been due to the great migrations across the Atlantic — and sad thoughts of family and friends who’d likely never be seen again.
We two have paddled in the stream,
from morning sun till dine† ;
But seas between us broad have roared
since auld lang syne.
Sorry for being so concrete, but these days, I’m finding it difficult to tolerate even one more iota being added to this country’s rampant mindlessness.
harlana
@Kat: Thanks for that!! All this bullshit conjecture without facts is just plain annoying.
Tim
Happy New Year, ABL!
Thanks for this post. It got me motivated to also Wiki the song and read about its origins and meanings. For many years I warbled it drunkenly at midnight on NY’s and never bothered to find out what the hell it was all about.
I guess it had a vaguely morose/reminiscent quality that was good enough as is. :D
MattF
FWIW, professional linguists can’t figure out what it means either.
Joel
Isn’t the daisy picking a reference to getting laid?
Rugosa
I always thought that “should” in the old sense meant “if,” as in “Should I miss the train, I will call you.” (Sorry. I went to school in England for 3 years.) But I agree with those who say the song is about separation and reunion. Or maybe not even reunion — just remembering friends and good times.
Ed Drone
The meaning of “Auld Lang Syne:”
Ed
(And the “let’s rekindle old flames” idea is contraindicated by the Dutch Treat aspect of “you buy your drink, I’ll buy mine.”)
Angry Black Lady
@harlana: annoying to you, fun for others. we’re all capable of reading wikipedia. mindless speculation can be fun. try it some time.
@Tim: happy new year to you [email protected]Maody: @demimondian:
@Yutsano: my mom called me to say she was making tamales for dinner after having made black eyed peas and ham hocks for lunch. i cried a little inside.
Yutsano
@Angry Black Lady: I am still all about hitting up your mom’s place for dinner some time. Hell if we can swing it I might drag along a Marine or two.