Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren vog Obam Here. You know that song
Speaker 1: you hear every New Year's Eve, the one about not
Speaker 1: forgetting old acquaintances? Did you ever wonder about that phrase
Speaker 1: in the chorus? The one that's also in the title
Speaker 1: for Old Lang Sign. It's the most common song for
Speaker 1: most English speaking people to sing on New Year's Eve,
Speaker 1: and it may be one of the top two most
Speaker 1: sung songs in the English language, after only Happy Birthday.
Speaker 1: But to be honest, I've never known exactly what it
Speaker 1: means or where it comes from, and I'm guessing a
Speaker 1: lot of other people don't either, or a lot of
Speaker 1: the other words in it, for that matter. In a
Speaker 1: survey from the UK in a third of respondents said
Speaker 1: that they were planning to sing it on New Year's
Speaker 1: but only three percent knew the lyrics. So what does
Speaker 1: it mean? A good sub question to this is what
Speaker 1: language is it? It turns out that Oddline Sign is
Speaker 1: an Old Scots language folk song that may have never
Speaker 1: even been written down until the seventeen hundreds. Scott's isn't
Speaker 1: just a dialect of English, but a distinct, if related
Speaker 1: language which is why it's fair that revelers who don't
Speaker 1: speak any Scots have some trouble with the lyrics. Some
Speaker 1: phrases and even whole verses commonly printed for English speakers
Speaker 1: are in Scots. The first written version may have been
Speaker 1: put down by Scottish printer James Watson in seventeen eleven,
Speaker 1: but the seventy eight version by Scottish poet Robert Burns
Speaker 1: is the one that's gotten the most attention over the years,
Speaker 1: so the song is associated with him. A friend of his,
Speaker 1: the music publisher George Thompson, may have been the one
Speaker 1: who suggested the relatively modern melody that we're familiar with
Speaker 1: today instead of the more traditional folk melody that It
Speaker 1: was originally transcribed with odd lang sign literally means old
Speaker 1: long since. More conversationally, you might say it means something
Speaker 1: long long ago or times gone by. So when we
Speaker 1: sing this song, we're saying, in essence, we'll drink a
Speaker 1: cup of kindness yet for times gone by. The song
Speaker 1: has been popularized by a number of musicians over the years,
Speaker 1: including Beethoven, who included an arrangement of it in his
Speaker 1: twelve Scottish Folk Songs from eighteen fourteen. The Scottish may
Speaker 1: have started incorporating it into New Year's celebrations soon after
Speaker 1: Robert Burns published it, and it's also sung at other
Speaker 1: Scottish events like weddings and Burns Night, the holiday that
Speaker 1: celebrates the poet on the day of his birth January.
Speaker 1: They likely spread it throughout the British Isles and into
Speaker 1: the U s and Canada as they immigrated, but it
Speaker 1: perhaps became cemented with American New Year's Eve traditions when
Speaker 1: the Canadian big band music group Guy Lombardo and the
Speaker 1: Royal Canadians began playing it during their New Year's Eve
Speaker 1: concerts starting in Their show was broadcast on North American
Speaker 1: radio and later television all the way until nineteen, earning
Speaker 1: Lombardo the nickname Mr. New Year's Eve until his show
Speaker 1: was supplanted by Dick Clark's New Year's Rock and Eve.
Speaker 1: But Lombardo and his band played odd Lang sign every
Speaker 1: year for decades, and it's since been reinforced by other
Speaker 1: pieces of popular culture, like the film When Harry Met Sally,
Speaker 1: and apparently in some parts of Japan, it's played in
Speaker 1: stores to signal that's almost closing time. Today's episode was
Speaker 1: written by someone on the house stuff Works editorial team,
Speaker 1: possibly Marshall brain Um and added to by me and
Speaker 1: it was produced by Tyler Clang. For more on this
Speaker 1: and lots of other new topics, visit house to works
Speaker 1: dot com. Brain Stuff is a production of I Heart Radio.
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