Auld Lang Syne became a worldwide New Year’s Eve tradition after Guy Lombardo’s orchestra broadcast it in 1929.
Lombardo and his Royal Canadians performed the song during a New Year’s Eve radio broadcast from New York. Their repeated use of it helped establish the melody as a standard part of midnight celebrations in North America and, later, many other countries.
The phrase “auld lang syne” is Scots for “old long since,” or more naturally, “for old times’ sake.” The song’s words are associated with the Scottish poet Robert Burns, who sent a version to a Scots musical collector in 1788. Burns drew on older traditional material rather than inventing every line from scratch.
The song is often sung at midnight, but it also appears at farewells, graduations, and memorial occasions. Different countries use different translations, pronunciations, and melodies, so performances may sound unlike the familiar English-language version.