Song of the Day 12/31: André Rieu, “Auld Lang Syne”

There is something about the tune we use for Robert Burns’ “Auld Lang Syne” that urges people to start singing. Listen to the start of this video of Dutch violinist and conductor André Rieu striking up the tune at a concert in Maastricht, the Netherlands. He doesn’t get to the end of the first line before people are singing along.

This melody wasn’t the first one appended to Burns’ poem, but it’s the one that stuck, and it has a universal appeal. Nobody is sure where it came from. An English composer, William Shield, employed a brief snatch of what sounds like the first eight bars in the overture to his 1782 opera “Rosina,” but he was consciously emulating Scottish airs. Similar passages have been cited from various older folk tunes, but none was exactly the current “Auld Lang Syne,” which was published in 1799.

The song traversed the globe with the Scottish diaspora, and the tune was often repurposed. The tune’s pentatonic scale makes it relatable to the scales used in East Asian music; for many years it was used for the national anthem of South Korea. In Japan, it was used for “Hotaru no Hikari,” (“Glow of a Firefly”) written as a children’s song in 1881.

That the melody stirs emotion is undeniable. Film director Frank Capra certainly appreciated that – he used it in three of his movies, culminating in the final scene of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” where even James Stewart’s shaky singing couldn’t blunt its impact.

While we Americans mostly reserve its use for New Year’s Eve, it finds broader application in the UK. When Brexit forced Britain out of the European Union, MEP’s serenaded their erstwhile colleagues with the song. Linking hands with crossed arms during the last verse is a Scottish tradition.