‘Auld Lang Syne’, the best known song in the world, is sung everywhere on New Year’s Eve and at the end of every kind of social gathering - it is a powerful vehicle for feelings of nostalgia, friendship and community.
This manuscript was bought at auction at Christie’s in New York on December 1998 at a cost of £122,497. Funding came from a variety of sources including Glasgow City Council, Heritage Lottery Fund and BT Scotland. It was the last one remaining in private hands.
There are six extant manuscript copies in Burns’s handwriting, all showing slight variations, three in America and three in Scotland (the other two are in Burns Cottage Museum). The main difference between this one and the version usually sung is in the first line of the chorus - Burns wrote ‘my jo’ rather than ‘my dear’.