When the song finishes, the crowd rushes to the middle still linked by their hands and after they rush out again, they turn underneath the arms to then face outwards. At the start of the final verse, everyone then crosses their arms across their chests so that their right arm links to their neighbour’s left. 'Auld Lang Syne' has been translated into many languages, and the song is widely sung all over the world. Traditions at New YearĪuld Lang Syne is traditionally sung at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve in Scotland and around the world, especially in English-speaking countries.Īt Hogmanay in Scotland, traditionally everyone joins hands to form a large circle. He is widely considered Scotland’s national poet and is best known for being part of a group who wrote in the Scots language. Some of the lyrics were collated along with his own – the ballad “Old Long Syne” printed in 1711 by James Watson has some similarities in the first verse to Burns’, for example. He was a Scottish poet and wrote the poem “Auld Lang Syne” in 1788. Our friend Rabbie was born on the 25th of January, 1759, at Burns Cottage at Alloway, and this is the traditional night for a Burns Supper, a tradition that began in 1801, five years after the poet’s. It seemed appropriate and we were familiar with ‘Auld Lang Syne’ from Canada where we grew up. Well, here we are, at Burns Night: the global celebration of the birth of the Bard of Scotland: Robert Burns. So, we decided to use it on that New Year’s Eve program, too.

He was also known as Rabbie Burns and the Bard of Ayrshire. We hadn’t started our Robert Burns program yet, but we knew what we're going to do and we knew we were going to use ‘Auld Lang Syne’ as a theme, because Robert Burns wrote it. Robert Burns was born in 1759 and died in 1796. But the broad seas have roared between usĪnd we will take an excellent good-will drink

Rabbie burns auld lang syne