There is an old saying among horse-betting enthusiasts: “You bets your money and you takes your choice.”

How else can it be when you compare the great diva, Leontyne Price, with the gut-wrenching singing of the queen of psychedelic drugs, Janis Joplin?

As for another old saying, “There is no accounting for taste,” that is plainly false and most likely the best way to make sense of it is to understand it as “There is no way to justify taste.” Let’s go with that.

Janis was born to middle class parents but was always a misfit. Her wild ways were too much for her high school mates and she was deeply into the use of drugs as a teenager. Nevertheless, she tried a brief period of studiousness when she was a sociology major in college. It just didn’t take, and in short order she put that behind her and became the legend in her own time, dying young at age 27. Surprisingly, she is ranked only as the 28th greatest singer of all time by Rolling Stone magazine.

To the casual ear, her voice is hopelessly out of control and usually off key. But listen closely and you will notice that she is the master of her vocal chords and always knows where she wants the next note to land. Her style is unique and loved by rock fans but for those who, like me, were raised on classical singing, it takes a bit of work to grasp her genius. Here is a clip of her singing the superb classic, Summertime, from the opera Porgy and Bess.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzNEgcqWDG4

Price’s upbringing was very different. She was the daughter of dirt-poor black folk in Mississippi who early on recognized the extraordinary talent of their daughter and sacrificed to give her the best musical education. Even with it, she did not rise to stardom until she was about the same age as Joplin was when the latter died of an overdose of heroin combined with plenty of alcohol.

Of Price’s singing, it is good to know that the great trumpeter, Miles Davis, had this to say: “I have always been one of her fans because in my opinion she is the greatest female singer ever, the greatest opera singer ever. She could hit anything with her voice. Leontyne’s so good it’s scary. … I love the way she sings Tosca. I wore out her recording of that, wore out two sets.”

Here is Price’s version of Summertime. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMCw_FjSQuQ

Long ago and far away – in fact more than a quarter century ago, while I was in London, England – I did what George Balanchine, the Supreme Master of Choreography, would never think of doing. I went to the British National Museum. In so doing, I suppose I did what few Londoners would ever do. As with New York’s two great museums, the Metropolitan and the Museum of Modern Art, it was packed with out-of-towners. All tourist attractions depend on the visits of non-natives. (I paid my first and only visit to the Statue of Liberty after I had moved to Michigan, and I have not yet been to the Empire State Building. Of course, I suppose that Mr. B, as all his slavish underlings called him, including his bevy of wives, never went to the theatre, movies, a ballgame or a park. It would be the height of grandiose ambition to think one could match his singular devotion to one art form.)

I was particularly attracted to a masterpiece by the Italian Renaissance painter, Carlo Crivelli, and I think I stood near it, examining it from several angles for a good 3-5 minutes. It exhibited an attention to detail that astounded me. After walking away, I imagined Carlo as a little boy playing stickball in the streets of Venice.

“Carlo, my angel, come in now and eat your pasta.” Obediently, Carlo did as his mother bid him to do. Two hours later:

“Hey, Carlo, come on out and play.”
Carlo’s mother cries out from the window: “Carlo can’t go out now. He is practicing to become a great painter.” And so it came to pass.

I entered a diner-like place not far from the Museum and ordered the British equivalent of coffee and toast. The Brits refer to what was placed in front of me as coffee and toast. A nicely dressed man approached.

NDM: I believe I saw you at the Museum. You were admiring a Crivelli for at least 20 minutes. May I sit down?
SG: Yes, I was just there. I was looking at the Crivelli for about 3-5 minutes. Yes, please sit down.
NDM: Well, it doesn’t matter. 3 minutes or 20. You were very attentive and that caught my attention. What did you find so much to admire about it?
SG: I don’t really know. Crivelli was a spectacular craftsman, and that must have been it.
NDM: But you could have taken that in within 3 minutes. 5 at the most. 20 minutes is considerable.
SG: Did you time me?
NDM: No, but I do know the difference between 3 and 20 minutes. Well, let’s not haggle over 17 minutes. You agree with me, I suspect, that Crivelli is one for all ages.
SG: I wish I could agree but I know almost nothing about art.

The Nicely Dressed Man raises his eyebrows and says: Oh? What brought you to the National Museum?
I resist the urge to say, “A bus” and, instead, give the dull response: I don’t know.
The NDM persists: You are being modest, I am sure. No one who knows nothing about art stands in front of a painting for 20 minutes.
SG: It was closer to 2 minutes, perhaps 3.
NDM: I think it was at least 10 minutes but, in any case, I suppose you enjoyed examining it. Am I at least right about that?
SG, now staring at his faux toast with a critical eye he did not have for Crivelli: I guess so.

The NDM, now realizing his error in imagining I was something other than a nitwit: I have to go now. Thank you for the company.
SG: You are welcome. Maybe I will see you again – at the Tate.

I proceed to examine my “coffee” and ponder the mystery of British food. I decide I’ll skip the Tate.

Thee are many good ways to know a neighborhood. My personal favorite is to read as much as I can about its history and geography but close behind is to walk its streets. The sights and sounds of a large neighborhood are variegated and, without a guide, taking it all in is a daunting task.

Brooklyn, New York is one of the most historically significant cities in America and hundreds of books have been written about it. Among the best pictorial guides to Brooklyn is Brooklyn Public Monuments which is subtitled Sculpture for Civic Memory and Urban Pride. Our guide is a Walker of the Streets who personally photographed several dozen statues and monuments that are precious records and celebrations of Brooklyn history.

You cannot really walk the streets of Brooklyn and duplicate the author’s feat. With its 96 square miles of streets laid out in a nondescript, hodgepodge sort of way, you will get lost in only five hours or so and not have seen 1/4th of what is worth seeing. His labor of love spares us the effort. Here is an excerpt from its preface:

“Brooklyn, New York has 43 major public monuments. Acquired over a period of 125 years, they are one of America’s finest collections of urban public monuments, and one of Brooklyn’s irreplaceable assets…….The Brooklyn public moument collection is unique in that six of the monuments were commissioned by the City of Brooklyn – the most monuments with sculptures commissioned by any 19th century city government in the United States…….The monuments, celebrating Brooklyn’s local history and its place in national and world history, are an enduring expression of the art-loving culture that flourished in Brooklyn in the lated 19th century and on into the 20th century…….May this guide be a witness for Brooklyn’s public monuments and a plea for their continued appreciation and preservation.”
—-Elmer Sprague
Memorial Day, 2007

All the photographs are accompanied by fine explanations of the sculpture details and rich history that make it possible to learn about Brooklyn without cracking open another book. There is also a useful bibliography and a modest index. The book can be purchased through Amazon.com or directly from its publisher: Dog Ear PUblishing, 4010 W. 86th Street,Suite H, Indianapolis, IN 46268. Website: www.dogearpublishing.net

[SG: No solicitations were passed between the author and this blogster and the author's first awareness of this post is your first awareness of it.]

You leave your house to go to work. You get into the car, start the engine and then realise that your windscreen is covered in frost. You jump out, run into the house to get some water. When you emerge again, only 5 minutes later, your vehicle has been stolen.

Your insurer says that it will not cover your loss because you left the vehicle “unlocked and unattended” and with the keys “in or on” it. You therefore failed to take “reasonable care” of your property, and you cannot expect the insurance company to pay for that.

Well, here’s the good news. In Britain there is a financial ombudsman court to whom victims of insurance companies can apply. If the Brits can get it right in such an uncivilized society as that which exists over there, maybe there is hope in the USA. The ombudsman court will ask:
whether the driver was in a position to deter the thief, or make the theft unlikely;
whether the driver was recklessly disregarding the risk of theft or inadvertently causing such a risk;
whether any mitigating factors caused the driver to leave the car and keys;
whether the exclusion was properly drawn to the consumer’s attention.

Consider this case in which the reluctant-to-pay insurer may have been on better grounds than in the hypothetical I gave above. Mr G’s car was stolen while he was having a meal in a fast-food restaurant. He said that after parking the car outside the restaurant he had removed the keys from the ignition and checked that all the doors were locked. He had then put his car keys in his coat pocket and gone in to the restaurant. Mr G left his coat and a newspaper on a table close to the food counter before going up to get his food. After Mr G had eaten his meal and was getting ready to leave he discovered the keys were missing from his coat pocket. He went outside and found that someone had taken his car. Yup, the insurer didn’t want to pay but the ombudsman court ruled that Mr. G had not deliberately courted a risk or taken measures that he knew were inadequate to protect his property.

Thus ends our story happily.

On another note, having absolutely nothing to do with this, let me say a few words about Beethoven. I have always thought that any book, no matter what its presumptive subject, should find some reason to include the name “Beethoven” somewhere in it. You will agree with me that this is perfectly reasonable. As partial proof of this, I offer you a link to that short masterpiece of overtures, Beethoven’s EGMONT. Listen to it and start your day off right. CLICK HERE.

And that was only 8 minutes 40 seconds of your time. Listen to it good and loud. Feel a lot better now, admit it.

As all right-thinking persons know, you can’t argue over musical tastes. To prove this, here are three versions of Ol’ Man River.

Der Bingle, Mr. Crosby: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yTqSgCHy9c&feature=related

King of Zoot Suits, Cab Calloway: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhkysLd1X34&feature=related

Now, I present William Warfield. Forget this business of you can’t argue over musical taste. NO ONE IN HIS RIGHT MIND CAN PREFER WILLIAM TO BING OR CAB.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XlEzY4tMyg

I enjoy a good flick as much as the next person but is a flick only a flick?  For me, nothing beats a good movie for entertainment (not counting Beethoven and the gang).  Over the years, many serious-minded persons (and I confess to being among them) have asked whether movies can be regarded as a high art form, rather like classical music, sculpture, dance, theater, and literature.   My answer is simplistic but, I hope, not trite.   Some can be.  Of course, most films are trash and even among the good ones we are not usually witnessing art.  For those who raise the question, “So?”,  I have no response.  I am not in the business of persuading people nothing matters as much as great art because I don’t think that is true.   Still, I believe that if trash, in whatever form it takes, lowers our sensibilities and ability to appreciate good things, then art raises our sensibilities and belongs on the list of good things.

Not everything that has aesthetic value is art if we mean by the latter a conscious design to create something that is valued for its own sake.  A piece of driftwood may be an aesthetic object.   Contrarily, a cheap bit of nothing being sold for 10 bucks at a Greenwich Village art show may be a steal (on the part of the “artist.”)  Movies can have aesthetic value even when they don’t amount to art.

First of all, films are made for commercial purposes but that need not count against them.   In the beginning, movies were made for inexplicable purposes.  By around 1914, D.W. Griffith had come around with serious intentions, both commercially and artistically.  Prior to Griffith, films were just recordings of theatrical performances and the camera had a fixed perspective.   Movies were worth the 3 cents viewers paid.

Griffith introduced close-ups and lots of editing.  He built characters.   He provided perspectives that live theater couldn’t.   Griffith is what critics today call an auteur – a one-man gang. His films owed all their virtues and vices to him and him alone.  Eisenstein introduced flashbacks, montage and other technical innovations but began inviting so many others in to help him that he lost single, total control of his products.    Chaplin is in that tradition.    They were not auteurs in the complete sense Griffith was.    Nevertheless, Chaplin and Eisenstein put an authoritative stamp on their work and we may regard them as the creative intelligences that shape the final output.  They were artists.

According to Rudolph Arnheim, possibly the premier film critic of them all, an artistic movement must proceed from minimal materials.  Thus, for him the silent movies are the great age of film.   Sound, color, sophisticated technology made it all too easy.  Today, students major in something called computer-aided design (CAD) and turn out out wonders never dreamed of even as recently as 1965.  It is a wizardry that, no matter how much we may enjoy their productions, removes these students from the world of art.

Technology has reached its most astounding development in the recent film, Avatar, mostly celebrated for the money it has made for its company but the film-maker, James Carroll, has also been hailed as a great artist.  The film, which I have no intention of seeing, is an adventure in science fantasy.  Science fantasy differs from science fiction in that (as Wikipedia puts it) science fiction describes unlikely things that could possibly take place in the real world under certain conditions, while science fantasy gives a veneer of realism to things that simply could not happen in the real world under any circumstances.  Time travel into the past is a fine example of the latter.   Avatar presents a speculative picture of the future and perhaps straddles science fiction and science fiction.

My problem with Avatar is that it has no pretensions to being anything but wonderful entertainment. Well, from all I have heard, it doesn’t pretend but succeeds.   For me, and this very personal, I prefer movies that provide us with profound emotional experiences.  For me, the apex of art is found in the great novels and the great music of the romantic composers.  Whenever I listen to the Regina Coele Laetare portion of Mascagni’s opera, Cavalleria Rusticana opera, I am quite literally on the verge of swooning.   That is what I want from music and Regina is not alone in providing it but it is the very pinnacle of magnificence.  I don’t exactly pity those who don’t enjoy it as I do, but I feel they are missing something that helps makes life worth living.    I recall that when I finished Ignazio Silone’s novel Bread and Wine (almost 60 years ago), I slumped over my kitchen table and couldn’t stand up for 10 or 15 minutes.  That is what I want from literature.  Silone’s novel was my first experience with literature that moved me that way.   I have not dared re-read it in all these years because I worry that the poignancy of the climax won’t be duplicated.

I can see some movies more than 10 times and enjoy them as much as I did the first time because they don’t aim to give me more than mild pleasure.   Some movies, not many, frighten me with their power.  I revisit them no more than once in 10 years.  They are art, plain and simple, and they alone justify all the hoopla that is lavished on flicks.

Some time ago I presented you with this excerpt from the Mascagni opera and this seems a good time for a second listening and watching.  Turn it up good and loud and don’t think of the neighbors.  Maybe it will be a treat for them, too.   I hope it will make clear what great art is all about.  And, oh, yes, grip tight the arms of your chair and hang on – hang on for the very sake of your dear life.   You will never experience anything like this on a roller coaster ride.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FLbTIzHD9A

1. The 7th Seal (better known to you as Det sjunde inseglet)  Setting – a knight’s residence.  Knock, knock.

Knight – Who’s there? ………..Death – It’s me, Death.     Knight – Oh, come on in.   What’s up, Big Fella?………Death – Not you.  You’re going down.

Knight – Hey, in that case, how about a game of chess, first.     Death – Sure.  What’ll it be for you, the black pieces or the white?   Either way, you’re going down for the count.

Knight - ”I cry out to [God] in the dark,” the knight confides to the robed figure, “but sometimes it seems as if there is no one there.”

Death - ”It could be no one is there.” ………….The knight’s quest for God and his quest for meaning are really two sides of the same coin, for there is no true meaning apart from God.  This is a true comedic masterpiece and will split your sides wide apart.   On a scale from 0 to 10, let’s give it an over-the-top 10.5.   Possibly the greatest movie of all time.

2. Wild Strawberries (Smultronstallet – just add the umlaut in the right spot and you will know the movie to which I refer.)…………Ingenious follow-up to Det sjunde inseglet.     A trip down memory lane.  A catharsis.  Childhood is the only reality of our life.  Or something like that.   “Isolation is only way to be yourself.”    (I read that somewhere.)    Dark and brooding – I think.  By Bergman standards not much, but compared to Woody Allen, let’s give it 9.8.   That’s what Woody himself would give it.  Ingmar’s greatest fan.

The Virgin Spring, Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light, Persona,  Cries and Whispers, The Silence. Magnificent studies of the existential questions of mortality, loneliness, and religious faith.    Something in each of these for everyone.  Especially for Woody Allen.   [Caveat - please do not ask me what "existential" means.]

Many other movies of quintessential genius.   In each of them, Ingy explored quiddities and quoddities.

Low point of Ingmar’s life was his arrest for income tax evasion.   In consideration of his unequaled genius, charges were eventually dropped.   High points of his life were his four divorces followed by the death of his fifth wife before he could divorce her.   Better yet were the affairs he conducted with movie stars Harriet Andersson, Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullmann.   They provided his inspiration.   Ingmar is high on my list of great men.   Just behind Caligula and Torquemada.   As for the movies, really, they speak for themselves and I don’t know why I offered otiose analyses.

This song belongs to Aaron Lebedeff at least as much as the songs in My Fair Lady belong to Rex Harrison.   (I believe it is a felony to sing Rex’s song without trying to imitate him.)   [Look for Aaron's singing in the post below this one.]

Aaron made his mark in the 1920s and since then, hundreds, maybe thousands, have tried to imitate him.   Knowing it is futile, the super great Barry Sisters tried their own interpretation.

The song’s conclusion is cut off.    Still, magnificent.    The Barry Sisters flourished in the 40s and 50s and were the Jewish response to The Andrew Sisters.  The Barrys were jazzier and had far more swing.   I first heard Lebedeff imitators when Danny Kaye sang Rumania in a 1940s movie.  Can’t locate it any longer.   Mickey Katz’s son, Joel Grey, sings it.   So does Johnny Cash!!!  Astonishingly well, too.)   Youtube probably can give you a dozen other would-be’s.

If you really are crazy enough to want to try your own luck alongside these pros, start with an easy English version.  I cannot vouch for the translation but it looks right to a patzer like me.     Try singing it alongside the Barrys or, better yet, Aaron L.   Once again, you’ll find the link to Aaron in the post immediately below this one.

Oh Rumania, Rumania, Rumania, Rumania, Rumania, Rumania, Rumania.

Was such a lovely place, I just can’t explain ye.

Oh Rumania, Rumania, Rumania, Rumania, Rumania, Rumania, Rumania.

It was once a land so fine with milk and honey .

If you lived there it was such a pleasure.

What you wanted you got in full measure.

A mameligele, a pastrami, a sausage with bread,  pastrami, karnatzele (a kind of smoked meat similar to jerky)

And a glass of good wine, aha!

In Rumania all is well,

If there’s trouble you can’t tell [They don’t know any worries].

They drink everywhere,

They chase their drinks with Kashkaval (a sheep’s milk yellow cheese).

Now comes the impossible part if you want to sing in tempo.

Hay di-gi di-gi dam, di-gi di-gi di-gi dam.

Hay di-gi di-gi di-gi di-gi di-gi dam.

Hay di-gi di-gi dam, di-gi di-gi di-gi dam.

Hay di-gi di-gi di-gi di-gi di-gi dam.

There are lots more hay di-gi-di-gi-di-gi dams but that’s enough.     If any of you are dirty, hook-nosed, kinky-haired Kikes, here’s a link to a Yiddish version.   Yeah, when I was 13, I probably could have read this stuff.

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~verele/studentprojects/0506/rumenye.htm

Hey, did you hear the one about the Yid greenhorn who wins a $10 million lottery within one week of coming to America?  Before an assembled crowd of a dozen newspaper men  (i.e. newspaper people) he says, “Vot a countrree. Vot a vunderful countrree.  Only in America.  I vant thanks God, and all you, and my beloved vife and…and… [he looks down at his wrist and sees the lottery numbers] and Herr Hitler for giving me the vinning combination!”

What sick perversion turns people AWAY FROM anti-Semitism?

The Transportation Security Administration has apologized for ordering a 4-year old boy to remove his leg braces in order to pass through a Philadelphia airport metal detector.  The boy is unable to walk at all without them……It actually came to a vote: in both Virginia and Georgia, a bill was beaten down that would have made it legal to implant microchips in people without their permission……American Airlines now charges $8 for blankets……During an ABC interview, Dick Cheney said he was “a big supporter of waterboarding.”  {If it were Cheney’s turn, I’d be a big supporter, too.] ……….Finding no one to care for her 10-months old son, Specialist Alexis Hutchinson refused to deploy to Afghanistan.  She has been demoted to the rank of private and denied many of her benefits………Evan Bayh does not want to be a senator any more. He says there are too many brain-dead people in Congress.  [It took him two full terms to realize that?] …….Having nothing better to do, a man stood on the edge of Mt. St. Helen’s crater, fell 1500 feet, blew his emergency whistle and died.  [My advice: Next time you are playing at the edge of a volcanic crater, take a ladder, not a whistle with you.[........Curious standards: Good 'ol boy, Billy Clinton had quadruple-bypass in 2004 but last week one of his grafts became blocked and he went for emergency treatment at Columbia/Presybyterian Hospital in NY.  The physicians report that Billy is in excellent shape. [With physicians with diagnostic skills like that, who needs...]  P.S. Sources tell me Bill was admitted without presenting Medicare or supplemental insurance cards.]……..It seems Obama and his Mongolian horde regard the people being held at Guantanamo as terrorists.  Funny, but nobody called Charles Manson, Geoffrey Dahmer, or Theodore Bundy “murderers” but only “alleged murderers” until after they were convicted.  Of course, they were not dangerous guys……..Go figure.  Rockstar Patti Smith read biographies of Baudelaire and Rimbaud and was impressed…….. Movie beauty Helena Bonham Carter lives in one house with their children while her husband (paramour, or whatever he is) lives in an adjacent one.  “It’s a snoring issue,” she says, but tacks on, “He always visits, which is touching.”……….The American way to end filibuster reached its most glorious high moment when somebody poisoned Senator Robert La Follette’s glass of milk while he was gabbing away in 1908.  He had to leave the Senate floor for a bout of vomiting………When I was a kid, America had what other countries had – a working class.  Since the rhetoric  went through the roof during Obama’s campaign, everybody is either rich or middle class.  Obama never mentions the working class because he doesn’t know there is one.  Anybody who has not been laid off from his job for the last 104 weeks and has gross earnings of $30,000 in that period regards himself as a member of the middle class.   So why should Obama think differently?……..I just paid $150 for a pair of glasses.  I supplied the frames, my ophthalmologist did the exam and provided the prescription. She got $150.    The optometrist ground the glass to her order and picked up the last $150.  “Do you exam eyes?” I asked him.   “No, I grind the glass.”  Thank god, he didn’t farm the work out to an optician or I’be out another $150.   I asked him why he was not part of a certain national discount group for optometrists.  He said that’s because he does “quality work.”   I asked him for an eyeglass case for my new $150 quality glasses and he said he hands them out only to “patients” who buy his frames.  I asked him what made me a patient but he said, very politely, he had to attend to other patients………Hawaii was the only state in the USA not to have snow last week……..In order to contain costs, Utah legislators are considering making senior year in high school optional.   [Obviously, they should make grades from kindergarten through junior year in his high school optional.  The truth is they should make going to school illegal but that proposal is a little before its time.] ………Putting a mad spin on things:  Rahm Emanuel said (in a closed meeting, of course,) that  some of his fellow Democrats are “fucking retarded,” whereupon, when she got wind of this, Sara Palin said the Illinois wunderkindt “was putting a slur on all God’s children with cognitive disabilities.”    Fucking retard that he is, Manny apoloogized and introduced a new word: Henceforth he will refrain from using the R-word. Of course, nobody knows what the R-word is because it is taboo to “de-abbreviate” it……….Tiger Woods announced he is cured.   The last time a man his age renounced interest in sex with beautiful women, he was locked up in a sexual rehabilitation looney bin.

Wikipedia has an excellent article tracing the history and uses of Auld lang syne, and I think it is fair to say that ever since Guy Lombardo first exploited it on the eve of the New Year, 1929, it is the Song of Songs around the world – the number one hit of all time.  It deserves the honor and should stay that way.  It is the song of celebration in all nations: Scotland, of course, and the USA, but also Pakistan, Japan, the Scandinavian countries, throughout South America, even in such unlikely places as Zimbabwe and the rest of Africa.

Officially, it is merry and celebratory but it has a wistful character and does not so much ring in a new year but presses regret upon us for days long gone that won’t ever come back.   Only the genius of George F. Cohan could change it to an upbeat number as he did in You’re a Grand Old Flag.

Ev’ry heart beats true
‘neath the Red, White and Blue,
Where there’s never a boast or brag.
But should auld acquaintance be forgot,
Keep your eye on the grand old flag.

Well, that’s the great George but for me and, I imagine, a billion others, the song is not a chauvinistic celebration of America but just a time for wishing those who are still with us many more good years but always with our heads turned around, looking into the past, remembering the good and bad times of Days Long Gone By. Here’s wishing each and everyone of you a good year and hoping especially, that your bad times are mainly behind you.

Shid ald akwentans bee firgot,
an nivir brocht ti mynd?
Shid ald akwentans bee firgot,
an ald lang syn?

CHORUS:
Fir ald lang syn, ma jo,
fir ald lang syn,
wil tak a cup o kyndnes yet,
fir ald lang syn.
An sheerly yil bee yur pynt-staup!  [and surely you'll buy your own pint]
an sheerly al bee myn!    [and surely I'll buy mine]
An will tak a cup o kyndnes yet,
fir ald lang syn.

CHORUS
We twa hay rin aboot the braes,   [we two have run around the slopes]
an pood the gowans fyn;   [and picked the daisies fine]
Bit weev wandert monae a weery fet,  [but we've wandered a many weary foot]
sin ald lang syn.

CHORUS
We twa hay pedilt in the burn,   [we two have paddled in the stream]
fray mornin sun til dyn;
But seas between us bred hay roard
sin ald lang syn.

CHORUS
An thers a han, my trustee feer!
an gees a han o thyn!
And we’ll tak a richt gude-willie-waucht,  [and we'll take a right good draught]
fir ald lang syn.