[HPFGU-OTChatter] "Auld Lang Syne" (Was: What's wrong with "Merry Christmas"?)

[P. Alexis Nguyen]

Carol:
> That's good to hear. But what about the people under forty, especially
> Americans? I heard a commentator on "The Today Show" or one of those
> morning programs (I was channel-switching) saying that she was glad
> someone or other was doing an instrumental version of "Auld Lang Syne"
> because "nobody knows the words." Obviously, she was speaking for
> herself (I'm guessing she doesn't even know the meaning of the title),
> but how accurate is her assumption? Are we losing yet another tradition?

I'm about to turn 25, well below the 40 mark, and all of my friends
are around there. That being said, most of us can sing at least the
first verse of Auld Lang Syne - if stuck having to sing it, I could
probably actually sing the whole thing. However, being that none of us
really do the pop the champagne, kiss your significant other, etc
thing, no one sings it - let's just say that the parties that most of
us attend tend to be of the smaller, stranger-less variety where
random singing might only occur if the song was related to the current
conversation.

That particular NYE celebration is nice and special and still holds
true in many places - I'm pretty sure that some my friends sang it
when they went to a hotel NYE celebration last year - but many of the
people I knew who was at a place where the song was sung was there
under duress, whether due to their significant other's desire or
whatever.

~Ali