Page 528 - The Secret Museum

ALL OVER THE WORLD, ON New Year’s Eve, we humans like to sing ‘Auld Lang

Syne’: ‘For auld lang syne, my dear, for auld lang syne, we’ll take a cup o’ kindness
yet, for auld lang syne.’ Which is a bit strange, considering how few of us know what
‘auld lang syne’ means (‘old times’ sake’), or why we cross our arms and hold hands
with our neighbour while singing. Still, it is a fun thing to do and makes everyone
glow with bittersweet hope and nostalgia.

The tradition all came about thanks to a piece of paper that is two centuries old
and now lives in a black, combination-lock briefcase in a secret location within the
Mitchell Library in Glasgow. Scotland’s national poet, Robert Burns, took this piece

of paper, laid it out on his writing desk and wrote the words to ‘Auld Lang Syne’
upon it in brown ink, using a sharpened feather. You can even see where Burns
stopped to dip the quill’s nib into his inkwell, as the writing is inkier and stronger in
parts.

I enjoyed looking closely at the poet’s surprisingly large and neat handwriting and
seeing the words he immortalized on paper. As with so many of the objects I have
seen in basements and cupboards, this piece of paper transported me back in time, to
the moment of its creation. Although the words to the song have been set free into the

world, it’s nice to know the original is carefully stored in the Mitchell Library. It’s
best that the paper is kept out of the light, because it is already yellowed, and so
fragile it looks as if it might turn into a puff of smoke if you were to blow on it. I
couldn’t look at it without singing the words silently in my head.

The song spread across the world as the Scottish people did; they took their
traditional song with them, and it caught on. The curators of the library told me that,
in Scotland, the song is sung at the end of all kinds of events and celebrations, not just
at the end of the year.

‘Auld Lang Syne’ really only became the global New Year’s anthem because of a

Canadian singer called Guy Lombardo. For decades (1929–59), Lombardo
performed a live broadcast from the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City on New
Year’s Eve. Each year, his orchestra, the Royal Canadians, would play ‘Auld Lang
Syne’ as part of the celebration. It was thanks to radio, then television, that the song
became a real ‘tradition’.

Nowadays, in Times Square, New York, New Year is celebrated by thousands of
people singing ‘Imagine’ by John Lennon, then comes a countdown to midnight itself,
and a recording of Lombardo and the Royal Canadians playing ‘Auld Lang Syne’

brings in the New Year. The song that always follows is ‘New York, New York’ by
Frank Sinatra.

The Scottish song has been interpreted differently in other parts of the world. The
tune of ‘Auld Lang Syne’ is used as a graduation and funeral song in Taiwan. In
Japan it is played to usher customers out of shops which are closing for the day;
there, the tune is called ‘Glow of a Firefly’ and uses the same melody but different
lyrics. Until 1972, ‘Auld Lang Syne’ was the national anthem of the Maldives. The