Auld song for a new year

[oleorezinator]

A beautiful rendition from my friend Patrick Ratchford.
Happy New Year!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcIr9WujAkc

[chas]

Susan McKeown singing it to a different air.

[BigDavy]

Hi chas

That is the original air Burns set it to.

Eddi Reader singing both versions at the Scottish Parlaiment.


David

[chas]

Susan sings both with Johnny Cunningham on their album, "A Winter Talisman." I find the original a much better tune, but maybe that's because the more common one is so, well, common.

[mutepointe]

Thank you for those clips. I've only heard the song sung by New Year's Eve drunks who didn't know the melody or the lyrics. That's a nice song.

[Nanohedron]

Speaking of older melodies for the song, this is the one I've been introduced to lately as "the original", but whatever (I would say it depends on which set of lyrics you want to go by, but datewise - see below - it's certainly a contender for one of the possible originals to Burns' lyrics, specifically. ):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGBb7IbY ... re=related

Courtesy of electricscotland.com, here is a selection of six melodies associated with versions of the song from 1700 to 1796, respectively. The melody in the clip I posted above is far and away closest to #6, with that setting being the one attested to date at least from 1796. Just on first glance (bearing in mind I'm not a strong reader) the prior 5 seem to generally have more details in common with each other than to the 6th one, which seems to be more its own creature and is also the most simply presented of them all.

All this isn't to quibble, but it's been interesting for me to find out more and more about the lyrics and melodies as they seem to have developed over time.

[Seonachan]

Speaking of older melodies for the song, this is the one I've been introduced to lately as "the original", but whatever (I would say it depends on which set of lyrics you want to go by, but datewise - see below - it's certainly a contender for one of the possible originals to Burns' lyrics, specifically. ):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGBb7IbY ... re=related

The audio in that YouTube video comes courtesy of The Cast (Mairi Campbell and Dave Francis), which the uploader might have seen fit to mention. As far as I'm aware, it was this recording that popularized both the melody and its claim as "the original". But in the liner notes to the song (from their debut album The Winnowing), Dave only claims what you suggest as plausible: that the melody is "Burns' original setting for his universally known words".