Formed in 2009, the Archive Team (not to be confused with the archive.org Archive-It Team) is a rogue archivist collective dedicated to saving copies of rapidly dying or deleted websites for the sake of history and digital heritage. The group is 100% composed of volunteers and interested parties, and has expanded into a large amount of related projects for saving online and digital history.
As I have mentioned every Thursday I spend an hour or so Dancing with Parkinson’s. Each week Julia, our marvellous teacher, works with a musical theme. Of course our last session for 2025 included the perennial Auld Lang Syne. Though the words were familiar the melody wasn’t the one we are accustomed to singing.
It would appear that this may have been the tune that Robbie Burns heard when he “took it down from an old man.” in 1788. He deemed the melody “mediocre” and in 1799 it was published with the now familiar setting. Though the first verse may be the one he “took down” it appears that several stanzas that follow are of Burns’ invention. (As a footnote, the transcription on the screen takes the idiom “my jo” incorrectly as “my jove”: jo is Scots for dear, darling, sweetheart.)
Oddly in that version by Mairi Campbell the last verse is omitted.
There have been so many versions and arrangements of this traditional and very popular song. (How I wish I owned the copyright!) It has been covered by jazz musicians, pop singers, rock bands, brass bands et al. And who could forget Die alte gute Zeit by Ludwig van Beethoven.
Beethoven!! gasps my faithful, if inattentive to past posts, reader. I’ve written on a few occasions of the tireless work of George Thomson in commissioning and publishing parlour arrangements of folk songs of the British Isles. Beethoven submitted 175 arrangements of which all but 25 reached publication. Auld lang syne appeared in a collection published in 1818.
This is the only performance I could find on the YouTube but I’m not sure you could do better than Dame Flot, Sir Thom or Mark A as a vocal trio.
Unlike the Mairi Campbell version it includes the last and, though oft omitted, most post important stanza.
It answers the questions asked in the first verse:
| Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? | Should old acquaintance be forgot, And never brought to mind? |
| And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere! and gie’s a hand o’ thine! And we’ll tak’ a right gude-willie waught, for auld lang syne | And there’s a hand my trusty friend! And give me a hand o’ thine! And we’ll take a right good-will draught, for auld lang syn |
No matter which version we sing tonight let’s hold our old and new friends in our hearts, if not by the hand, and wish them well as the new year begins.
The word for December 31st is:
Hand /hănd/: [1. noun 2. verb]
1.1 The terminal part of the human arm located below the forearm, used for grasping and holding and consisting of the wrist, palm, four fingers, and an opposable thumb.
1.2 A homologous or similar part in other animals, as the terminal part of the forelimb in certain vertebrates.
1.3 A unit of length equal to 4 inches (10.2 centimeters), used especially to specify the height of a horse.
2.1 To give or pass with or as if with the hands; transmit.
2.2 To aid, direct, or conduct with the hands.
From Middle English, from Old English hand (“hand, side (in defining position), power, control, possession, charge, agency, person regarded as holder or receiver of something”), from Proto-Germanic *handuz (“hand”).
Willy Or Won't He 
