Should auld acquaintance — and 2017 — be forgot?

THE AULD FAMILIAR LINES: “Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And never brought to mind? We’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet, For auld lang syne.”        Robert Burns (1759-1796)        Scottish poet        The best known lines from his poem “Auld Lang Syne” (1788), which actually mean that old acquaintances should not be forgotten, they should be remembered and thought of fondly.         These lines were popularized by Guy Lombardo's musical version, but most people can’t remember the rest of the lyrics. In case you want to have them on hand on New Year’s Eve or read the backstory on the poem and the song, see this post on my This Day in Quotes site.

THE GOOD RIDDANCE TO 2017 VERSION: “Should 2017 be forgot and never brought to mind?...To start it off right we hired a buffalo chicken drummy that fell into a pile of cat hair to be the captain of the ship. Ok, yes! We let the people around us feel like second-class citizens and inhuman. We let families and children and POC and women wonder if anyone gives a shit about them or if all along we’ve been pretending at some semblance of openness and equality. Great, sounds good! And that was only in January alone! There isn’t enough time in well hey, a year, to write about how it only continued to get more wonderful from there. It was like a scene from a movie after a bomb goes off and everyone wanders around the charred landscape while pieces of burnt wood fall from on high and embers rain from the sky. Just when you thought one more bad thing couldn’t happen, somebody finds a hidden landmine and the whole thing just goes up in smoke again.”        Quinn Angelique        American blogger        Expressing what many people feel about 2017 in a post on the Medium website, December 26, 2017

MICKEY ROONEY’S FAIR WEATHER FRIENDS VERSION: “What bothers me are friends, or perhaps acquaintances, who in rough times turn out to be non-acquaintances. I'm going to write a song about their approach. You probably know the melody:    Should non-acquaintance be forgot    And never brought to mind    Should non-acquaintance be forgot    Or kicked in their behind?”        Mickey Rooney (1920-2014)        American actor        In his book I.E. An Autobiography (1965)

THE TOTAL ABSTINENCE COUNTERQUOTE: “Let drinking customs be forgot And never brought to mind. Come, moderate drinkers, topers, sots, And leave your cups behind.”        Henry Lee (1911-1993)        American journalist and author                      Quoting an old Temperance Movement song in his book How Dry We Were: Prohibition Revisited (1963)

THE ODDLY ANTI-ABSTINENCE TEMPERANCE SONG: “Can abstinence be now forgot, And never brought to mind? Can abstinence be now forgot, And mercy to mankind.”        Lyrics from the song “Poured Out By Hands Divine,” in The Standard Book of Song for Temperance Meetings (1883)

THE JANUARY 1st, MORNING AFTER MEME: “Your new, bed-related acquaintances should probably be forgot, and never brought to mind. Not that you remember them anyway.”         New Year's meme created by WildRumpus on the SomeCards.com site

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

Comments? Corrections? Email me or Post them on the Famous Quotations Facebook page.

Related reading, listening and watching…

“Ring out the old, ring in the new” … Happy New Year from QuoteCounterquote.com!

THE FAMILIAR NEW YEAR’S SAYING: “Ring out the old, ring in the new.”        Alfred Tennyson (a.k.a. Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson; 1809-1892)        English poet         Famous line from Tennyson’s In Memoriam A.H.H. (1850)        Many websites and books say these familiar words linked to New Year’s Eve are from a Tennyson poem titled “Ring Out, Wild Bells.” Technically, that’s incorrect.         The verses that go by that name come from Tennyson’s epic work, In Memoriam A.H.H., his elegiac musings on the death his friend Arthur Henry Hallam (the “A.H.H.” in the title). In Memoriam A.H.H. is essentially a very long poem comprised of 131 short ones that are referred to as cantos. These cantos were not given individual names by Tennyson. The popular title “Ring Out, Wild Bells” are the first four words of the canto that includes the line “Ring out the old, ring in the new.” (Canto CVI, or 106 in Roman numerals). Here’s the part where the famous lines first appear…               Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,                  The flying cloud, the frosty light:                  The year is dying in the night;               Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.                Ring out the old, ring in the new,                  Ring, happy bells, across the snow:                  The year is going, let him go;               Ring out the false, ring in the true.        The tradition of tolling bells to “ring out” the year that is ending and “ring in” the new one predates Tennyson. It’s actually an old custom in England and many countries around the world. However, Tennyson is generally credited for cementing “Ring out the old, ring in the new” into the English language and making it a linguistic tradition associated with New Year’s celebrations.

A POST-2016 ELECTION TIP FOR GLOOMY DEMS:       “Gloom is a terrible way to ring out the old, and despair is of no help in trying to imagine the new.        So let us consider what good might come from the political situation in which we will find ourselves in 2017.  Doing this does not require denying the dangers posed by a Donald Trump presidency or the demolition of progressive achievements he could oversee. It does mean remembering an important distinction President Obama has made ever since he entered public life: that ‘hope is not blind optimism.’       ‘Hope,’ he argued, ‘is that thing inside us that insists, despite all evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it, and to work for it, and to fight for it.’”        E.J. Dionne Jr.        American political commentator and professor at Georgetown University              In his December 28, 2016 column in the Washington Post        (Cartoon by Phil Hands for the Wisconsin State Journal)

A PERFECTLY HEARTWARMING MUSICAL VARIATION: “Bring out the old, bring in the new A midnight wish to share with you Your lips are warm, my head is light Were we alive before tonight? I don't need a crowded ballroom Everything I want is here If you're with me, next year will be The perfect year.”        Don Black        English lyricist        Lyrics from “The Perfect Year,” one of the songs in the musical Sunset Boulevard, with lyrics by Black and music by Andrew Lloyd Webber. (First performed in London in 1993.)

GEORGE’S MUSICAL VARIATION: “Yesterday, today was tomorrow And tomorrow, today will be yesterday So, ring out the old, ring in the new Ring out the old, ring in the new Ring out the false, ring in the true.”        George Harrison (1943-2001)        English rock musician        From the lyrics of his 1974 song “Ding Dong, Ding Dong” (included on the Dark Horse album)

THE JAMES JOYCE VARIATION (WITH EXPLANATION): “Wring out the clothes! Wring in the dew! Godavari, vert the showers! And grant thaya grace! Aman.”        James Joyce (1882-1941)        Irish novelist and poet         Lines from his novel Finnegans Wake (1939)        What's Joyce’s version mean? Well, in his book Verbal Behavior (1957), American psychologist B.F. Skinner offered this, er, helpful explanation: “Joyce’s line ‘Wring out the clothes, wring in the dew’ borrows strength from the latent intraverbal sequence ‘Ring out the old, ring in the new,’ as well as from a current theme of women washing clothes in the open air. The line may not be musical, it may or may not evoke emotional or practical responses, but it clearly manipulates verbal strength. It is this verbal play which is reinforcing to the reader and hence indirectly to the writer.” ... Got it?

A POST NEW YEAR’S EVE PARTY CLEANING TIP: “Wring out the Old; Bring in the New... The Old: Sponges can be sanitized in the microwave. The True: Using the microwave can be risky...there is the possibility of starting a fire.”        The American Cleaning Institute (formerly the Soap and Detergent Association)        In the January/February 2009 edition of the organization’s newsletter, "Cleaning Matters"

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

Comments? Corrections? Post them on the Famous Quotations Facebook group.

Related reading…

Should “Auld Lang Syne” lyrics be forgot, sing a parody version…

You can read about the origin of the lyrics of “Auld Lang Syne” on my ThisDayinQuotes.com blog. In tonight’s post on QuoteCounterquote.com, I offer some of my favorite alternative lyrics. Happy New Year!

THE GAY LOMBARDO VARIATION: “When Socrates in Ancient Greece Sat in his Turkish bath He rubbed himself, and scrubbed himself And steamed both fore and aft. He sang the songs the sirens sang With Oscar and Shakespeare We’re here because we’re queer Because we’re queer because we’re here. The highest people in the land Are for or they’re against It’s all the same thing in the end A piece of sentiment. From Swedes so tall to Arabs small They answer with a leer We’re here because we’re queer Because we’re queer because we’re here.”         Brendan Behan (1923-1964)        Irish playwright, poet and novelist        The best-known song from his play The Hostage (1958)

THE SARDONIC WORLD WAR I SONG: “We’re here because we’re here because We’re here because we’re here We’re here because we’re here because We’re here because we’re here.”           World War I song of unknown origin, sung by British soldiers to the tune of “Auld Lang Syne”

THE DWUNK VERSHUN: “If all the lyrics are forgot Right after the first line Don’t worry ‘cause alone, you’re not That’s how you sing “Lang Syne”! Now all the lyrics are for naught We butcher “Auld Lang Syne”! We drink a couple Jaeger bombs (Now drunk out of our minds!) Now awl the lyrics are forga Wha-eva comes 2 mind (hic!) Shoo awful lyr-er uh uh what? Blah blah blah blah lang syne! (blaaarrgh!)”        The parody song “Old Lame Song”        Posted on the AmIRight.com website by “Red Ant”

THE TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT VARIATION: “Let drinking rum now be forgot, And never brought to mind; Let drinking rum now be forgot, And cider, beer, and wine. For rum and beer we pay full dear, With rosy nose and eyes; We'll take a glass of water now, For sure we're growing wise.”        Anti-drinking song published in the Signal of Liberty newspaper (Ann Arbor, MI) in 1842

YOUR DAY-AFTER RECOVERY REMINDER: “We’re Here Because We’re Not All There!”        Slogan on a button sold by the Wooden U Recover website, which sells “recovery” merchandise to people on the wagon.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     * 

Comments? Corrections? Post them on the Famous Quotations Facebook page.

Related listening and reading…