- - Why Do We Sing 'Auld Lang Syne' at New Year’s? All About the Iconic Song and How It Became a Holiday Standard

Victoria EdelDecember 31, 2025 at 5:04 PM

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Billy Crystal (left) and Meg Ryan in 'When Harry Met Sally' -

"Auld Lang Syne" plays during New Year's celebrations around the world

The iconic song was written by Robert Burns and spread from Scotland around the world

The song has been covered by artists across genres and featured in dozens of films

At midnight on New Year’s, there’s a good chance you’ll hear it: “Auld Lang Syne.” At the end of the seminal rom-com classic When Harry Met Sally, as they embrace in a room of people singing the song at midnight, Billy Crystal’s Harry asks Meg Ryan’s Sally what the song even means. “Anyway, it’s about old friends,” she tells him. She was partly right.

The lyrics to “Auld Lang Syne” as we know it now were written by Robert Burns in the 1780s, though he said it was an old song that he was recording on paper for the first time. However, Burns often changed the lyrics of old songs he collected.

Scotland.org notes of the lyrics, “The phrase 'auld lang syne' roughly translates as 'for old times' sake', and the song is all about preserving old friendships and looking back over the events of the year.” “Auld lang syne” loosely means something like "time gone by” or "old time's sake," according to The Morgan Library.

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Sheet music of 'Auld Lang Syne,' circa 1900

The original lyrics were written in the Scots language, though as Scottish people spread the song throughout the British Isles (and then to the U.S. and Canada), they were also translated into English. In 1799, the lyrics were set to the tune that it’s still associated with to this day.

The tradition in Scotland is to sing the song on Hogmanay — their word for the New Year’s celebrations — with everyone standing in a circle, holding hands. On the final verse of the song, everyone crosses arms across their bodies and when the song ends, they run into the middle of the circle.

“For generations, it’s been sung at New Year because it’s perfect for it,” Scottish poet Michael Pedersen told CNN. “There’s nothing in the song that dictates it should be sung then. People just had an emotional compass for it. They gathered outside town halls and sang it, and it drifted — like a great, beautiful glacier of song — into that New Year position.”

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People celebrating New Year's (stock photo)

In the U.S. and Canada, the song’s tie to New Year’s was also helped by bandleader Guy Lombardo, whose show would be live broadcast on the radio on New Year’s Eve. The broadcast was so popular that Lombardo became known as Mr. New Year's Eve, per the CBC. He included “Auld Lang Syne” in his show every year, from 1929 until 1976, his last show before his death. His recording of the song is the one played in Times Square after the ball drops.

Though the song is most often associated with New Year’s and the December holidays, it is often also played at graduations, retirements, funerals and other events that mark the end of something. In Scotland, it’s often sung at weddings as well.

Still, Burns scholar Thomas Keith told the BBC in 2013 that it’s actually a song of reunion, not of parting. It’s not just about the days gone by, but of coming back together. “It is something to do with that melody as well as the Burns lyrics, because the lyrics are sometimes known and sometimes not," he said.

“Auld Lang Syne” has also made it widely into pop culture. It’s been covered by a wide array of artists, including Mariah Carey, Kenny G, Sufjan Stevens, The Beach Boys, Phish, B.B. King, Billy Idol and even Jimi Hendrix.

Besides When Harry Met Sally, “Auld Lang Syne” also features in movies like It’s a Wonderful Life, The Apartment, Forrest Gump, Iron Man 3, Carol, Phantom Thread, While You Were Sleeping and many, many more. It also inspired Dan Fogelberg’s 1980 song “Same Old Lang Syne.”

Nowadays, massive New Year’s celebrations also often feature the song. The song has also been translated into many other languages and remains popular in non-English-speaking countries as well.

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”