1 January -- New Year’s Day

“Auld Lang Syne” -- Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians (Lyrics Attributed to Robert Burns)

Every single year, we recite the same old tired myth about the origin of this new month's name. We all know we followed the Romans and adopted “Ianuarius” as the first month of our calendar. (The Ancient Latins were somewhat lazy when it came to inventing the letter “J.”) So far so good. But we always go wrong when we seek the name’s inspiration. We always surmise Romans looked to Ianus (usually anglicized to Janus) in naming the first month.

The reasoning behind this assumption is sound. Ianus was the Latin God of Beginnings and Endings, the Deity of Time and Change, the Patron of Transitions. Even the physical features of this god lent themselves to the start of a new year: Ianus’s head featured two visages, one focused on what lay ahead, the other looking to the past. Could any divine personage be more suited to serve as namesake to the opening month of a new year?

Well, the Ancient Romans thought so.

They thought to name the first month of each year for Iuno, Queen of the Heavens and wife of the great Iupiter himself (commonly called Juno and Jupiter). Iuno -- Goddess of Love and Marriage, Protector of All Rome, Mistress of Fertility, yet a Deity of War and Martial Might. Iuno was clearly not a goddess to be take lightly. It was her favor the Romans invoked in naming the first month on their calendar.

Enough of that. Let’s move on.

Each time the hands of the clock glide past midnight on 31 December, the smart set -- which has conspicuously avoided inviting me to join it ranks -- gather in sophisticated locales to bid farewell to the old year and welcome the dawn of the new one by singing “Auld Lang Syne.” Why? What could it mean? And where is my invitation?

The answer to that latter question must remain an unfathomable mystery, but I shall endeavor to explain the earlier queries.

It is said that Scotland has made two outstanding cultural contributions to the world -- haggis and poetry -- Golf is not an outstanding cultural contribution! Oh, scratch haggis as well. Let’s just run with the poetry. Many Scots consider poet and lyricist Robert Burns to have been the greatest of their number ever to have lived. The truth of such claims lie far beyond my feeble powers of discernment, but there can be no denying his genius. Burns’s words reached far across the borders of his native land to inspire such luminaries as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Abraham Lincoln, Percy Shelley, and William Wordsworth to name but a exceedingly small number of admirers.

Robert Burns

25 January 1759 to 21 July 1796

Burns’s passions were not limited to the realms of language and music. He was also a humanist, always hoping for a better tomorrow, a fact that makes his association with New Year’s Day so very fitting. He drink deeply of the headily Enlightenment spirit that energized the 18th-Century world. He keenly admired the two great democratic revolutions -- the first in America, the second in France -- that occurred during the course of his life, perhaps sensing somehow they would eventually reshape Earth. Burns was a radical who believed in divesting the clergy of political authority, egalitarianism, and exploration of gender roles. And so it is most appropriate that nations across the entire globe greet each new year with his “Auld Lang Syne.”

Ironically, Burns’s best known creation is a melody not entirely of his own creating. And to be fair, Burns never claimed “Auld Lang Syne” to be a wholly original composition. When Burns forwarded the piece to the Scots Musical Museum in 1788, he explained, "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."  Songs having similar lyrics to Burns’s version date back to over a century before his appears. Just as the styling of “Auld Lang Syne” predates Burn’s recording of it, so does the melody of the old Scottish folk music accompanying the words.

The tradition of welcoming each new year with this enchanting ditty began in Burns’s native Scotland, of course, but then spread rapidly to other lands, carried by the Scottish diaspora. It would not take long for those newly exposed to “Auld Lang Syne” to appreciate its merits. Popular Canadian-born bandleader Guy Lombardo, for example, help spread this custom across the English speaking world with his immensely successful New Year’s broadcasts. Even today, Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians’ recording of “Auld Lang Syne” is the first song played every New Year at Times Square’s famous celebration.

The words “auld lang syne” comes from the Scots, and means “days gone by” or “old times” or “long, long ago.” This refrain remains honest to the words recorded by Burns in the many variations of the melody over the years. Let's compare, considering his original, Scottish brogue intact.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

and never brought to mind?

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

and auld lang syne?

[Chorus, repeated after each verse]

For auld lang syne, my jo,

for auld lang syne,

We’ll tak' a cup o’ kindness yet,

for auld lang syne.

And surely ye’ll be your pint-stoup!

and surely I’ll be mine!

And we’ll tak' a cup o’ kindness yet,

for auld lang syne.

We twa hae run about the braes,

and pou’d the gowans fine;

But we’ve wander’d mony a weary fit,

sin' auld lang syne.

We twa hae paidl’d in the burn,

frae morning sun till dine;

But seas between us braid hae roar’d

sin' auld lang syne.

And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere!

and gie's a hand o’ thine!

And we’ll tak' a right gude-willie waught,

for auld lang syne.

Now let’s examine the anglicized lyrics we all so sentimentally lip-sync while pretending to recall to in the beginning moments of each new year.

Should old acquaintance be forgot,

and never brought to mind?

Should old acquaintance be forgot,

and old lang syne?

[Chorus, repeated after each verse]

For auld lang syne, my dear,

for auld lang syne,

we'll take a cup of kindness yet,

for auld lang syne

.

And surely you’ll buy your pint cup!

and surely I’ll buy mine!

And we'll take a cup o’ kindness yet,

for auld lang syne.

We two have run about the slopes,

and picked the daisies fine;

But we’ve wandered many a weary foot,

since auld lang syne.

We two have paddled in the stream,

from morning sun till dine;

But seas between us broad have roared

since auld lang syne.

And there’s a hand my trusty friend!

And give me a hand o’ thine!

And we’ll take a right good-will draught,

for auld lang syne.