Auld Lang Syne lyrics: All the words to the traditional New Year’s Eve song
Share:
Because, let’s be honest, nobody knows more than the first two lines. Every New Year’s Eve, many of us will come to the realisation that we don’t actually know the words to “Auld Lang Syne”. Belting out the song as the clock strikes midnight is a long-held tradition in Scotland and around the world, but, after confidently singing the first line, you most likely end up singing “la laaaa la la la” over the actual words.
Given the song’s popularity, it’s quite funny how very few people can actually recite the (relatively short) anthem. It derives from a 1788 Scots poem by Robert Burns – but the poet actually never intended the piece to act as a farewell to the old year.
After writing it, he sent the poem to the Scots Musical Museum accompanied with a note that read: “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.”.
The phrase “for auld lang syne” essentially means “for (the sake of) old times”, which positions it as an apt song to sing at a time when people reflect on the past 12 months. While there are several variations of what’s sung on New Year’s Eve, below is Burns’s original Scots verse followed by a simplified English translation.
