On friendship, cups o’ kindness, and ‘Auld Lang Syne’

Way back when, in days of Old Long Ago, there was a slightly-wild Scottish poet who fell in love often and wrote many fine things, but may best be remembered for scribbling down and then cleverly tinkering with a moody, traditional drinking song known then and now as “Auld Lang Syne.“ Today, whenever a new year rolls around, Robert Burns’ indelibly melancholy tune is as sutured into our celebrations as are drinking too much, wearing pointy hats, throwing confetti and kissing people at midnight.

But why? Especially given how few folks actually understand the meaning of the song we all sing together as a ball drops somewhere in New York and we all take the “Count From 10-to-1 Backwards” sobriety test together. In fact, the annual questioning of the song’s meaning has almost become a tradition unto itself.

“What does this song mean?” Harry (Billy Crystal) asks Sally (Meg Ryan) at the end of the movie “When Harry Met Sally,” after finally getting out of his own way and confessing his love. “My whole life, I don't know what this song means,” he goes on, as all around them people sing, kiss and celebrate. “I mean, 'Should old acquaintance be forgot'? Does that mean that we should forget old acquaintances, or does it mean if we happened to forget them, we should remember them ... which is not possible because we already forgot?”

In return, Sally famously replies, “Well, maybe it just means that we should remember that we forgot them or something. Anyway, it's about old friends.”

Of course, Harry seems to be missing the point of the song.

The line, “Should old acquaintance be forgot?” is a rhetorical question, not a suggestion. It’s like saying, “Does a bear poop in the woods?” Or “Can you believe that sky tonight?”

Or, after noting some circumstance that seems unlikely but preferable to the way things are, “Wouldn’t that be nice?”

Anyway, Sally has it right when she says “Auld Lang Syne” is about old friends.

I once sang “Auld Lang Syne” with thousands of strangers standing about on bleachers in the parking lot of Edinburgh Castle, in Scotland, while dozens of boisterous bagpipes backed us up. It wasn’t New Year’s however. It was the beginning of August, and I was there for the annual Edinburgh Fringe Theater Festival. The show I was performing in that year, 2014, took place early in the day, so my crew and I had the evenings off to catch other productions. Coinciding with the Fringe every year, it so happens, is the presentation of the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo. A popular attraction in Edinburgh, the Tattoo is an enormous pageant of music, piping, dancing and jingoistic posturing that has been going on since 1949 and traditionally concludes with the entire audience holding hands — while all crossing arms, a bit of a challenge while teetering on bleachers, given that human people are not of uniform height or girth — and singing “Auld Lang Syne” together.

It was decidedly odd. But strangely emotional.

It’s possible I cried a little.

Something about all those people from different countries, coming together to watch a baffling display of military might and then holding hands to sings about remembering our loved ones and drinking together and kindness shared. It just got me.

But I have to admit, Auld Lang Syne always gets me.

My Scottish grandfather, born in Glasgow in 1888, would probably say it’s in my blood. Though he died when I was only 10, I remember him well, and his fondness for dropping bits of Scots dialect into everyday conversation. When I’d become too boisterous he’d tell me, “Haud yer Whisht!” which I somehow instinctively knew meant I should quiet down, and quickly. He always called me and my brothers his “wee laddies,” was a lifelong tinkerer as fond of taking a clock radio apart to see how it worked as he was eager to use the thing for its intended purpose, and loved to show us how things like magnifying glasses worked by catching something on fire. To this day I have his old ceramic tobacco jar emblazoned with the motto “It’ll a en’ in reek,” translated by my father as “It will all end in smoke.”

So maybe it’s the Scottish part of me, or those faint memories of my grandfather, that turns me all soft and gooey whenever I hear “Auld Lang Syne.” Or maybe it’s just the song. Most of us never sing the entire thing through, but taken as a whole, “Auld Lang Syne” is a song about loss. It’s about remembering past friendships and loves, and drinking a toast to them, no matter how far away or how long ago.

It’s a sad song.

Two of the verses few of us ever sing include the lyrics, “We two have run about the hills, and picked the daisies fine. But we've wandered many a weary foot, since auld lang syne.” Then there’s the verse, “We two have paddled in the stream, from morning sun till dine; But seas between us broad have roared since auld lang syne.”

Roughly paraphrased, Burns would seem to be saying, We used to do things together, but a lot has happened since then, since “Auld Lang Syne.”

I never talked with my grandfather about this song, but my dad often told me that he’d been told my his father that “Auld Lang Syne” meant “Old long ago,” and that when he told him and his brothers stories, they often began “In days of old long ago.” It’s like “Once upon a time,” evidently.

Different people have different interpretations. But one way or another, “Auld Lang Syne” means “in old times.” That’s why we sing it at the dawn of a new year, though not exclusively then, to mark the passage of time and grieve a little for what we’ve lost, while pledging to do a little better, love a little stronger, be a little kinder, in the future.

Actually, my favorite line is about kindness.

In the chorus, where the words say, “We’ll take a cup o’ Kindness yet,” it always moves me. The cup, of course, is technically referring to the old tradition of offering a toast, “raising a glass,” sometimes called a “cup o’ kindness.” I always took it more literally, especially the word, “yet,” which I took to mean “someday” or “eventually,” as in “There will be kindness, a whole cup of it ... someday ... eventually.”

It’s about possibility, I think.

That’s the type of thing we get to think about when one year gives way to another — possibilities for our future, opportunities to do good things, informed by the lessons we’ve learned in the Old (and not-so-old) Long Ago.

And kindness, as the Dalai Lama once said, is always possible.

So let’s share that cup o’ kindness this New Year’s Eve, and beyond.

Maybe even more than a cup’s worth.

Wouldn’t that be nice?

(“Culture Junkie” runs every other week, or so, in the Argus Courier. You can reach David at david.templeton@arguscourier.com)