Gang Aft A-gley

         Soon the annual ritual shall repeat: Millions upon millions of people around the world will great a new year by whooping and popping corks to the strains of a song they barely know and slenderly understand. Right, Harry?

      The song is of course "Auld Lang Syne,"music by a long-forgotten tunesmith, words by Robert Burns, the bard of Scotland. The title roughly translates to "times gone by." We have to translate it because Burns wrote in a Scots dialect that is highly musical but quite alien to the modern ear and eye. 

     The poem is about remembering the past, especially old friends, so it makes sense that Burns lifted much of the first verse and chorus from a gent named James Watson. Burns is thought to have penned all the verses that follow -- that is, the ones known by almost nobody. (To be fair, if you're at a New Year's Eve bash, your goal is probably to be making out with somebody by the time the second verse kicks in. Right, Sally?)

      Right.
      Still, if you'd like to sing along with the whole thing, have at it. Here is verse number three:

We twa hae run about the braes,
and pou'd the gowans fine;
But we've wander'd mony a weary fit,
sin' auld lang syne.

      The irony is that if you perform this impressive feat at a party, the people around you will not comprehend what you say and assume you are very drunk.