Glen Collection of printed music > Printed text > Illustrated book of Scottish songs from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century

CONVIVIAL SONGS. 239
And here's a hand, my trusty frien',
And gie's a hand o' thine ;
And we'll tak' a right guid-willie waught
For auld lang syne.
For auld, &c.
And surely ye'll be your pint-stoup,
And surely I'll be mine ;
And we'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet
For auld lang syne.
For auld, &c.
This -world-renowned song is always included among the songs of Robert Bums.
He did not himself claim the authorship of it. In a letter to Thomson, he says;
" One song more, and I have done. ' Auld lang syne!' The air is but mediocre;
but the following song, the old song of the olden times, and which has never been
in print, nor even in manuscript, until I took it down from an old man's singing, is
enough to recommend any air." — " Light be the turf," he says in another letter, " on
the heaven-inspired poet who composed this glorious fragment !" It appears that
the air to which the song is now universally sung was not the one which Bums
thought so little of, but another, of which the author is quite unknown, but which
appears to have belonged to the Roman Catholic Church, and to England quite as
much as to Scotland. Several other cathedral chants, of which the authorship is
claimed for English music, may be mentioned ; more especially the air known as
" John, come kiss me now," and " We're all noddin'," both of which are tinmis-
takeably English. It is curious to reflect that the most popular song ever written
in these islands, that of " Auld lang syne," is anonymous ; and that we know no
more of the author of the music than we do of the author of the words. It is equally
curious to reflect that so much of Burns's great fame rests upon this song, in which
his share amounts only to a few emendations.
OH, GUDE ALE COMES.
From " Johnson's Musical Museum," altered by Burns from an older song.
Air—" The bottom of the punch-bowl."
Oh, gude ale comes, and gude ale goes ;
Gude ale gars me sell my hose,
Sell my hose, and pawn my shoon ;
Gude ale keeps my heart aboon.
I had sax owsen in a pleuch.
And they drew teuch and weel eneuch :
I drank them a' just ane by ane ;
Gude ale keeps my heart aboon.