Ending the year with an Auld Lang Syne “mystery” — and looking ahead to 2024
We stumbled upon a fun Atlas Obscura article exploring the roots of Auld Lang Syne that begins:
“Guy Lombardo wasn’t thinking about tradition as the clock struck midnight in New York on New Year’s Eve 1929. He was probably thinking, as so many people were after the stock market crash that fall, about money.
“In front of a crowd at the Roosevelt Hotel in Midtown Manhattan, Lombardo raised his violin bow and launched his 10-piece band, the Royal Canadians, into a sweet and soothing rendition of “Auld Lang Syne.”
“The revelers on the sunken dance floor likely did not know the meaning of its Scots-language title. When the song went out over the radio waves in the first minutes of 1930, it was not yet a New Year’s Eve staple throughout the United States — and it may never have become one if not for a promised cigar company sponsorship and a raucous University of Virginia frat party.”
And once we’ve made it to the new year, the Daily Skimm gives us 14 Reasons to Be Excited for 2024.
