Auld Lang Syne

“Please, don't ever become a stranger / Whose laugh I could recognize anywhere”

Community readers hear the New Year standard standing behind a song set on New Year's Day. The plea never to let a loved one become a stranger twins with Auld Lang Syne's "should auld acquaintance be forgot", and "hold on to the memories, they will hold on to you" carries the same keeping-faith with days gone by. The arc from young revelry to the morning-after clean-up mirrors a song traditionally sung, hand in hand, as a gathering breaks up — one reader notes the Danish custom of closing a party by singing it together.