Why Auld Lang Syne Makes You Emotional

I am one of those people who finds 90% of holiday music to be utterly forgettable and trite. At best, most of it can be described as decorative noise best suited for the beige-white chasms of mall department stores. The lone exceptions are the dark, tense, and mysterious Carol Of The Bells (based on early 1900s Ukrainian folk songs) and, ironically, some of the old church classics (O Holy Night, Silent Night, etc.) which from a musical standpoint are far more interesting and complex than the pop-contemporary standards of Miss Carey and such. 

One of those exceptions is the perennial New Year’s anthem, Auld Lang Syne, which never fails to make me a little emotional when hearing it. Chances are, it makes many of you emotional as well. But why does it elicit these emotions? To understand why, first let's take a look at the history of the song and the ubiquitous melody it contains. 

The origins of Auld Lang Syne are twofold, the lyrics and the melody. Like most classics, the direct origins of both are difficult to pin down with the weathering of time. The lyrics come from a Scottish Poem written by Robert Burns in 1788, but it almost certainly did not originate from him. Rather, he collected the lyrics from old Scottish folk songs and compiled it into one. “Auld Lang Syne” literally translates to “old long since” but a better English translation would be “ days gone by” or “times long past”. Most people know the first stanza, which asks the rhetorical question “Should old acquaintance be forgot?” but beyond that, most don’t know the rest of the lyrics. The rest of the song is a call to remember those acquaintances, and especially good friends and partners in your life. 

The old folk songs from which the poem originates most likely had different melodies than what we are used to today. The first recorded use of the melody is actually quite difficult for historians to pin down. A lot of songs in the late 1700s were based on particular dance steps. Different songs based on the same dance steps will inevitably end up sounding similar in melody. Incidentally, God Save The King, the national anthem of Britain, was based on dance rhythm and poses a similar problem with origin discovery.

I am no expert in music theory, but one of things that’s very interesting about the melody of the song is that while it is in a major key (songs in major key are happy/triumphant, songs in minor key are solemn/melancholy) the way the chords and melody progress gives the song a certain underlayer of wistfulness and poignancy, which is difficult to accomplish in a major scale song. To demonstrate this effect, listen to this version of the song, which has been translated from major to minor key:

Now isn’t that the most depressing song you’ve ever heard? That’s a funeral dirge right there. So even in its natural major key, the song retains an undercurrent of melancholy that gives it extra audible flavor. Again this is not something very common, which instantly makes your ears pay more attention to it. 

So given that most people don’t know the lyrics of Auld Lang Syne or even what the title means, how does it still manage to evoke so many emotions in people? The answer is, of course, in memories. There’s a great quote by Basquiat that says “Art is how we decorate space, music is how we decorate time.” For a lot of people, Auld Lang Syne decorates a very specific point of time, the turning of a new year. When you’ve had a good year, the major/triumphant part of the song speaks to you as you reminisce on it. When you’ve had a forgettable year, the minor/sad undercurrent of the song is what speaks to you. In either case, as you look towards the new year, you are filled with hope. Hope that things will get better, or hope that the good times will keep rolling. 

Hope is a powerful shade of memory, and when you hear this song, you are reminded of that. The hope of a new year, and the memory of “old acquaintance”. It’s enough to make the stone-hearted a little teary-eyed. As the last stanza of the song says, “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!”