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The New Year’s Eve song, explained

Vox | December 11, 2025



The US associates “Auld Lang Syne” with the New Year, but not everyone does.

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After the ball drops in Times Square on New Year’s Eve, the crowd cheers, couples kiss, confetti flies and the song you hear is “Auld Lang Syne.” For Americans this song is associated with another year passing, but it means something else entirely in other cultures. Since the Scottish poet Robert Burns first published the words to the song in the 18th century, the melody has been adapted as a soccer ballad in the Netherlands, a graduation song in Japan, and more.

This video explains how an obscure Scottish folk tune took on new life around the world and how Guy Lombardo solidified it as the sound the US hears at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve.

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Comments

This post currently has 24 comments.

  5. @black-sun-enterprises

    December 11, 2025 at 3:22 am

    Black ancient reminiscences of heated lamps, under a starlight night, with a community of people, loosley related, and how this is the way the world would be

    And how the untouchables tried to ruin our party, ever since

    Twice we've paid the debt each time, and yet the seas are never still, again we toil and temble, arm and arm, drunkenly reminded

    That once, there was a better time.

  11. @tn5327

    December 11, 2025 at 3:22 am

    In 2025 and I'm still listening to it for New Year. It still brings back memories, any kind of memories, and along with them, the tears and a little bit of bitter sweet sadness.

  24. @aodhganmerrimac

    December 11, 2025 at 3:22 am

    I've been listening to Guy Lombardo's version since I was a little kid in the 1970s & was first allowed to say up 'til midnight on New Year's Eve & watch the broadcast from the Waldorf-Astoria in NYC. Chokes me up every time.

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