Sunday, December 30, 2012

AULD LANG SYNE (lyrics & sing along video included)


Bemoaning this past year would be an insult to those whose lives are lived in war torn cities, live out of cardboard boxes, eat out of restaurant trash bins, have no medical care for lack of insurance, and spend holidays at feeding halls out of the suspect generosity of a self-conscious society.  And yet I still feel like I need to bemoan.

I look at the oncoming New Year like a woman who has been told by her plastic surgeon that she can’t just have her neck done.  It’s the whole bag, old bag, or nothing.  That just because the clock ticks down from 2012 to 2013, the reality is nothing will change but the last two numbers of the year.  And that if change is what is wanted, the inebriated voice in one’s head should be singing “the whole bag, old bag, or nothing, dear, in days of auld lang syne.”  Just changing the year is not going to make even a tad of difference.  If you ache for change, the New Year is just an interruption, a line in the sand, a change of an appointment calendar, or the annoyance of remembering to put 2013 on your checks instead of 2012.  That if change is what you expect, it will take more than a few verses of Auld Land Syne sung off note into a glass of bubbly.  It will take moving on, leaving a comfort level of sameness.  Then there is the denial that while hankering for change, the fantasy of the way things are will alter by hanging in.

Whatever you decide for your New Year of 2013, change or maintenance of the same, I offer you wishes of as much happiness as you desire and as much change as you’re brave enough to dare.  And for those who can’t remember the lyrics to Auld Lang Syne, I invite you to print out the ones below as exactly lifted from The Huffington Post.  For those who have a tin ear, I've included a video from It's a Wonderful Life which should get you singing along.



Auld Lang Syne

by Robert Burns  

Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should old acquaintance be forgot, 
and old lang syne?

CHORUS
For auld lang syne, my dear, 
for auld lang syne,
we'll take a cup of kindness yet, 
for auld lang syne. 
And surely you'll buy your pint cup! 
and surely I'll buy mine! 
And we'll take a cup o' kindness yet, 
for auld lang syne. 

CHORUS
We two have run about the slopes, 
and picked the daisies fine; 
But we've wandered many a weary foot, 
since auld lang syne. 

CHORUS
We two have paddled in the stream, 
from morning sun till dine; 
But seas between us broad have roared 
since auld lang syne. 

CHORUS
And there's a hand my trusty friend! 
And give us a hand o' thine! 
And we'll take a right good-will draught, 
for auld lang syne. 

CHORUS

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