What song, associated with Robert Burns, is widely sung at midnight on New Year's Eve?

“Auld Lang Syne,” associated with Robert Burns, is widely sung at midnight on New Year's Eve.

The title is Scots for “old long since,” or more naturally, “for old times' sake.” The song asks whether old friends and past experiences should be forgotten, then celebrates friendship with raised glasses and joined hands.

Robert Burns sent a version of the lyrics to the Scots Musical Museum in 1788, saying that the song had been taken down from an old man's singing and that he had supplied some of the words. Burns therefore helped preserve and shape the familiar text, but the melody and parts of the wording have older roots.

The song spread far beyond Scotland during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Guy Lombardo's broadcasts helped make it a standard in North American New Year's celebrations. Its lyrics are often misunderstood because they use Scots vocabulary and an archaic grammatical style.