Mimi Faatz 0:01

Hello and welcome to all of our new listeners. I'm Mimi Fotz, and this is Hello from the Van. Parents, this episode is about 10 minutes long. It is the turning of a new year, and if you are like me, 2025 has been high high and low low. There have been so many wonderful things that have happened, and so many just exhausting, tiring things. And I'm looking forward to 2026. There's hope and beauty and freshness in a brand new year. And as we begin that new year, it's normal to take a day or a pause or an eve, if you will, and reflect on where we've been. That's kind of what we do on New Year's Eve. And as adults, we tend to get this thing called nostalgia.

Dwight Schrute 0:50

People underestimate the power of nostalgia.

Mimi Faatz 0:54

Nostalgia is a sentimental longing or a wistful affection for the past. Basically, it's thinking back on things that give you happy memories. We tend to get nostalgic about things that are important to us. For example, in the summer, I tend to get rather nostalgic about my house that I used to live at, and it was hard to leave that neighborhood and my friends there. But I'm in a different home with new neighbors and new friends here. Is it bad? Is it good? No, it's just nostalgia. What does nostalgia have to do with the turning of a new year? There is a song, you've probably heard it before, and it is all about nostalgia. The song is called Old Lang Zine. This song is in a lot of pop culture. It's in movies like Elf and Minions, and It's a Wonderful Life. And even while you were sleeping, I looked it up and the song is in over 250 films, almost always associated with New Year's Eve. Let me play a little bit for you here. This version is by a group of singers called The Hound and the Fox. You can find them on YouTube.

Hound and Fox 1:59

Should all the quaintest be forgot and never brought to my Should all the acquaintance be forgot and take on sight.

Mimi Faatz 2:20

Isn't that beautiful? This is a song that is sung all around the world on New Year's Eve. If you're like me, you don't get it. At least I didn't get it before I started researching for this episode. So let's go over what I found together. First, if you couldn't tell, this is a Scottish tune. From Scotland, of course. One of the things that I learned is that Scotland actually has three official languages. There's English, that's kind of the big one. Scots, which is what this poem was written in, which is a Germanic language that's related to English, but has its own vocabulary. And then there's Scottish Gaelic, which is the founding language of Scotland, and it's basically the mother tongue. Old Lang Sign was written in the late 1700s by a poet named Robert Burns. If you've been with us all through season one, when we did the 12 days of Christmas, you know that a lot happened in the 1700s. If you think back to our Christmas tree episode, that's when the culture of the Christmas tree spread around the world. And we know that a lot of our public domain writings came out of this time. There was so much going on that it actually has its own name. This is called the Age of Enlightenment. In writing, we call it the Neoclassical Period. I am aware that these are a lot of really big words, but I wanted to get us all on the same page as we explore this year because this age of enlightenment, this neoclassical period, is going to be very important as we go through all of the different topics coming our way. Now, one thing about the Age of Enlightenment is that a lot of people were doing a lot of big thinking. It was a wonderful time for artists and poets and writers. And old Lang Sein is one of the things that came out of the neoclassical period, or the Age of Enlightenment. But that's enough about that. Let's get back to our song of nostalgia. This poem was part of an oral history, and Robert Burns said, you know what? I don't want to lose this song. I need to write it down. Here's what he had to say about the song Old Lang Zine. He said, The following song, an old song of olden times, and which has never been in print, nor even in manuscript, until I took it down from an old man. So basically he had a source text or something to start with, and he added his own personal flair to it. And then he sent a copy to the Scots Musical Museum. And as we know, history is the words of those who write the loudest, and Robert Burns wanted to write loud. And that's what we have today. The words are one part, but what about the music? Well, the melody is from the 1700s as well. We know from his writings that there was actually a different melody attached to Oddlang Sein at Burns' time. He called this melody mediocre. And at some point, the melody that we sing today was attached to his words. We don't know if he approved of these or not, but we know that it's the version that stuck. But how did the entire world get this song with this melody? Singing Old Lang Sein on New Year's Eve has been a Scottish custom for hundreds, hundreds of years. So as Scots immigrated around the world, as they moved, they took this song and this custom or tradition with them. And from one generation to the next, it has become a part of the turning of each new year. But what does the song mean? Remember that nostalgia that we talked about? Our ability to look back on the places that we've been, the people that we've known, and the experiences that we've had together is a very powerful piece of our humanity. This song is a call for action, a call for nostalgia. You see, the song starts with a question. Should old acquaintance be forgot? That basically means, should we forget the people that we've known? Should we never bring them to our memory? The next line reads, and old Langzein. Old Langzein means times long past. It's basically saying, hey everybody, let's take a minute. Remember where we've been, the people we've loved, and the experiences we've had, both good and bad. Now on the last verse, you're meant to hold hands with the people around you as you sing the song, and it says, And there's a hand, my trusty friend, and give me a hand of thine, and we'll take a right good drink for old Lang Zine. I've always wondered why this song is in so many movies, aside from being in the public domain and being royalty free. Why is it in so many things? And why is it included in emotional scenes? And it's because of these words, it's because of the lyrics. It's a call to memory. Memory is very, very powerful. And this song is tapping into our collective humanity and saying, hey, remember all those things that you did, those feelings that you felt? Well, you did it, you survived. Despite struggle and love and loss, you did it, and you can do it again. That's why we sing it each New Year's Eve. This song is a reflective rallying cry. So as you start the new year, I hope you take some time to reflect upon the past, where you were when you were seven or eight or nine, or twenty-nine or thirty-nine for you moms out there, and that you'll be able to take the hand of a trusted friend and hold it together for old Lang Zine. To end the podcast today, we're going to listen to a Scotsman, Cameron Nixon, sing Old Lang Sign by Robert Burns, exactly how Burns had written it. You'll notice that some of the words are a little bit different than what we sing around the world. That's because this is the original version. I hope you enjoy it as you learn and reflect this year. I'm Mimi Fotz, and this is Hello From the Van.

Cameron 8:19

Should all the quaintance be forgot and never brocht acquaintance be forgot and signet for day so line If you're still here, something we do at the end of each episode is I cite my sources.

Mimi Faatz 9:15

So today's sources are Dictionary of the Scots Language by Susan Rene, Langsein, Songs from Robert Burns, 1759 to 1796, by Robert Burns, Old Lang Sign, a Song and Its Culture by Morad Grant, Traditional Songs from Scotland, Old Lang Sign, by ukmagic.co, the web entry, every single movie that plays Old Lang Sign at Some Point by Letterboxd, Od Lang Sign, sung by The Hound and the Fox, and finally The Office, Season 9, Episode 17, The Farm, written by Paul Lieberstein.