Beloved Saints:
I thought I'd circulate this interesting article on the song AULD LANG SYNE at this time rather than a few days before New Years. I've reformatted it as the article's link was yea long, and would not allow one to send out the link for ciruclation. At midnight, New Year's Eve, the world will be counting down to midnight, ushering in the new year of 2006.
As the world counts down at that moment, I am quite certain that the Faithful Saints are now, and have been for a while, counting down to that glorious moment when we are called Home.
God bless you as we anxiously continue "counting down" toward our imminent departure while keeping our hearts prayerful, pure, holy, humble, faithful, and obedient which will then qualify us to enter into the Kingdom of God.
InHisControl,
Celia
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END TIME DREAMS INDEX -- REVISED
http://www.etpv.org/2005/etdi-rev.html
AULD LANG SYNE
New Year's Song Remains Ingrained in Public’s Mind
Web posted December 31, 1999
By Stephen Lynch
Depending on where you celebrate New Year's Eve tonight, the turntables will spin Prince's 1999, Barry Manilow's “It's Just Another New Year's Eve,” or even, heaven forbid, Will Smith's “Will 2K.”
But at midnight, in almost every nightclub and home, on every television and radio, the song will be the same: Auld Lang Syne.
“It just fits the moment,” says Tyrone Traher, who has studied the origins of the song. “It's traditional. Kind of like how Amazing Grace is always played at a funeral.”
Except that most people can make it past the first line of Amazing Grace.
“Yes,” Mr. Traher agrees with a chuckle. “No one seems to know all the words.”
He pauses for a moment. “Come to think of it, I've honestly never read all the words to the song,” he concedes.
So there you have it: a Gaelic-riddled song with an old-fashioned melody that many Americans sing as “Should auld acquaintance be forgot ...'' and then trail off into a hum.
Is it our national New Year's anthem? “How'd it happen?” Glad you asked.
Auld Lang Syne means “old long since” and is adapted from a traditional Scottish folk tune. The basic words date to at least 1711, though some scholars say it was mentioned as early as 1677. Scottish poet Robert Burns is credited with first publishing it in the mid 1790s, and, researchers say, smoothing out some of the verses and changing the melody.
The song recalls “the days gone by,” and says we will always remember them. “Should auld acquaintance be forgot?” it asks. No, the chorus replies: “For auld lang syne (for times gone by), we'll take (drink) a cup o' kindness yet.”
It wasn't Burns, however, who turned this misty-eyed tune into a New Year's tradition. That would be Guy Lombardo, who first heard the song in his youth from Scottish immigrants in his hometown of London, Ontario.
“AULD LANG SYNE” HISTORICAL FACT
Guy Lombardo began the tradition of using Auld Lang Syne to ring in new years. The Scottish folk song has become standard fare for year-end festivities across the country and around the world.
SING UP!
Here is an old Scots version of Auld Lang Syne:
“Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And days of auld lang syne?”
Chorus
“For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne ¾
We'll take a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.”
Mr. Traher, who organizes the Royal Canadian Big Band Music Festival and tribute to Lombardo every year in London, says the song stuck in the musician's head. When Lombardo formed an orchestra with his brother in 1919, they arranged the piece and made it part of their repertoire.
“It seemed appropriate for New Year's ¾ a time to look back,” Mr. Traher says. So when the Lombardo brothers got the chance to headline at a New Year's Eve party in New York in 1929, they played Auld Lang Syne near midnight, and then counted down.
For nearly 50 years after that, Guy Lombardo and his orchestra played New Year's Eve on the radio, and television specials later from the Waldorf Astoria in New York City.
“Prior to Dick Clark, there was Guy Lombardo,” Mr. Traher says, and though Lombardo died in 1977, Auld Lang Syne became a staple.
Now there are pop versions of the song, disco remixes ¾ even a controversial British single of the Lord's Prayer sung to the tune of Auld Lang Syne, topping the charts in the United Kingdom this month. George Reynoso, an independent music retailer in El Paso, Texas, sells a CD through his Web site (www.newyearseve-song.com/) that includes country, polka, and dance versions of the standard.
“The Lombardo version is sleepy and dreamy, and it definitely needed an update,” Mr. Reynoso says.
He adds that he got the idea from Corrido de Auld Lang Syne, a hard-to-find Mexican dance version of the song.
“It's engrained in the consciousness,” Mr. Reynoso says of Auld Lang Syne's appeal.
And even though people aren't sure what it means, it sounds sad and soothing at once, he says. “It's a song about loss, but also about love ¾ a hope that you'll see the same people you love next year.”
Really?
“Well, that's the way I think about it,” Mr. Reynoso says. “But no, I don't know the words.” End.