↓
 
Home » Same Old Lang Syne

Same Old Lang Syne

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s not the season for it, but oh well – I’ve always liked this song of Dan Fogelberg’s. Turns out it has an interesting story behind it, too:

Comments

Same Old Lang Syne — 53 Comments

  3. I was privileged to once see Dan Fogelberg in concert in LA . Just him on stage with a guitar. We weren’t disappointed.

    I do not however remember his singing being so over the top as shown in the video. I think maybe by then he’d gone a bit too commercial.

    I am a fan and for me, “Netherlands” is his masterpiece.

  4. Love “Netherlands” and “Home Free” albums. My oldest brother played them when I was a little boy. My favorite song is “Stars” which also has a romantic theme. Beautiful acoustic guitar.

  5. Still played on the radio frequently a decade later. Had no idea released in 1980. (Not to my taste, really). Harry Chapin’s “Taxi” addressed similar themes.

  6. Dan Fogelberg was probably my first real favorite musician. I think it was “Longer” that was the first song that hooked me, and I wound up getting all his albums and binge listening. It seems to me that he always wore his heart on his sleeve, which is why I loved his music. The melancholy of so many of his songs had a perverse way of making me feel better about my own circumstances.

    The bittersweet memory expressed in Same Old Lang Syne made at least one other appearance in a Fogelberg song, “Hard to Say”, where he laments:

    “ Lucky at love, well maybe so
    There’s still a lot of things you’ll never know
    Like why each time the sky begins to snow, you cry”

    Anyone who has heard “Same Old Lang Syne” knows exactly why he cries when it starts to snow.

    The Windows and Walls album has to be the most depressing of his works. When I listened to it, I figured he had to be going through a pretty bad patch. Found out later that he wrote most of those songs when he was going through a divorce with his first wife. Not sure if that’s true, but I believe it.

    I was lucky enough to see him in concert. I’m sorry I’ll never have the opportunity again.

  7. I was never that impressed with Dan Fogelberg. Longer had to be one of the most cliched songs I ever heard and the other cassette I had never made me think of him as other than “meh”.

    But, I was stuck in Foxboro, MA, one night for work and he was playing live nearby. The guy I was with (thanks, Joe, truly, wherever you are) convinced me to go. As Geoffrey said, it was just him, with a guitar (well many guitars) and a piano. He was incredible. It changed my whole perception of him.

    but not his recorded selection. i just wish he could’ve gotten a producer who could’ve caught what he showed at his live performance.

    and later, i found out we were born on the same day, Aug 13, 1951.

  8. Great song, good to hear the story behind it. Could have been really destructive, though, if the woman had heard the song for the first time in the company of her husband, who probably wouldn’t have appreciated the part about ‘would have liked to say she loved the man but she didn’t like to lie’.

  9. Back then, the chicks liked Fogelberg, but the manly boys of the generation were into the true pop troubadour of the generation: Jimmy Buffett. Sorry, to the men who weren’t on that bus. Dan Fogelberg sucked.

  11. Along the line of Mick Finn:
    ____________________________

    Explain it to me. Heavy metal bands on trial because kids commit suicide, what is that about? Judas Priest on trial because my kid bought the records, and he listened to the lyrics, and he go into Satan… ALLALALALALALLALA! Well that’s great. That sets a legal precedent.

    Does that mean I can sue Dan Fogelberg for making me into a p*ssy in the mid ’70s, is that possible, HUH?

    –Denis Leary, “Does That Mean I Can Sue Dan Fogelberg”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WF17rWKygWY

  13. I’m a sentimental guy and I was all over the singer-songwriter thing in the 70s. But Dan Fogelberg was a little too sweet even for my sweet tooth.

    Which is not to criticize Fogelberg as a musician and craftsman. Full marks.

    I don’t know how one draws the line or whether it matters. I did buy Harry Chapin back then.

  14. Since Jimmy Buffett comes up…

    He’s a sentimental fellow too, but there’s some tough love as well. Listen closely to the lyrics of “Margaritaville,” perhaps his most famous effort.

    It seems a goofy, fun, hedonistic song on the surface, but go deeper and it turns into a serious confrontation with the narrator’s lostness. At the end he realizes he is blaming everything and everyone but himself. He starts out living on sponge cake and margaritas and making excuses, but finishes:
    _____________________________

    Some people claim there’s a woman to blame
    But I know … it’s my own damn fault.

    –Jimmy Buffett, “Margaritaville”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdAXczGsIYs

  15. Promises made
    Promises broken
    Measures of our demise
    Secrets of souls that
    Rarely get spoken
    Pleasure’s a thin disguise.

  17. Neo,

    Thanks for that one I have never heard it before I can see why Fogelberg called it his all time favorite track. A well written story song can’t be beat and that one also has a haunting guitar that perfectly fits the lyrics.

    I would not call him ‘sweet’ but maybe ‘sentimental’ would better fit his best known songs and there is nothing wrong with that in my opinion.

  18. Big fan of Fogelberg back in the the days when he was everywhere. ‘Leader of the Band’ is my favorite song of his, ‘Run for the Roses’ is a close second. The story behind ‘Same Old Lang Syne’ is fun to hear though that song was always too sweet for my taste. I did see him at Great Woods in MA in 1987. He did a solo acoustic night that was disappointing – every song sounded the same. Still listen to him occasionally.

  19. They don’t seem to write slice-of-life relationship story songs much anymore. Or at least I can’t think of any recent strong examples.

    There are plenty of love songs, sex songs, vague anthems, opaque WTF songs, social commentary, social justice crap and rappish swagger songs, but the relationship story song, of which “Same Auld Lang Syne” is an excellent example, is on the endangered list.

  20. @ david foster:

    ‘would have liked to say she loved the man but she didn’t like to lie’

    The more I hear that song, the more that line p1sses me off. It’s a high school mean girl swipe at a guy who has no real recourse, since duelling is now frowned on.

    @ huxley:

    Re Buffett and lostness and facing up to it… I’ve always thought Harry Chapin nailed that emotion in ‘Taxi’:

    ‘I stashed the bill in my shirt’

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5dwksSbD34

  21. Hearing “Same Auld Lang Syne” again, I’m struck that the first line melody comes from Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture.”

    Being a Boomer Child, I first knew it as the Quaker Puffed Oats song. “This is the cereal that’s shot from guns!”

    Reading SongFacts, I see this is old news. Or Auld News.
    ___________________________

    The melody phrase at the beginning of each verse (“Met my old lover at the grocery store…”) was taken by Fogelberg from Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture.” (To get the effect, just sing that lyric twice, slightly speeded up. Maybe add a few fireworks explosions for good measure.)

    https://www.songfacts.com/facts/dan-fogelberg/same-old-lang-syne

  22. Re Buffett and lostness and facing up to it… I’ve always thought Harry Chapin nailed that emotion in ‘Taxi’:

    ‘I stashed the bill in my shirt’

    sonny wayz:

    I hear what you’re saying, but it doesn’t quite fit for me.

    Buffett is facing up to his responsibility and who knows what he might be empowered to do from there.

    Chapin, or rather the song’s narrator, has given up his dreams in the real world and has settled for driving a cab and “flying” in his stoned reveries.

    “Taxi” was a theme song for my college commune gang. However, even as a hippie stoner, I was disappointed that the narrator had given up. I smoked a lot of grass, but I hadn’t given up — then or now.

    BTW, in case anyone wondered about the mysterious lyrics sung in that high descant(?) part in the middle of the song, here they are:
    _____________________________

    Baby’s so high that she’s skying
    Yes she’s flying, afraid to fall
    I’ll tell you why baby’s crying
    ‘Cause she’s dying, aren’t we all
    _____________________________

    I’m not sure how that fits in.

  23. sonny wayz:

    Apparently, she and her husband got divorced prior to the song’s coming out. In addition, her identity was a secret till she gave some interviews after Fogelberg’s death.

  24. “Some people claim there’s a woman to blame
    But I know … it’s my own damn fault.”

    A decade earlier Merle Haggard wrote “That leaves only me to blame ’cause mama tried”.

  25. “Mama Tried” is a truly great song, though I doubt the first in which the narrator accepted responsibility for his life.

    I first heard it on the Grateful Dead’s “Skull and Roses” (1971) live album. The song remained a standard for the rest of the Dead’s touring career.

    Wiki has an interesting account of how Haggard turned his life around in prison:
    _________________________________

    He was fired from a series of prison jobs, and planned to escape along with another inmate nicknamed “Rabbit” (James Kendrick[21]) but was dissuaded by fellow inmates.[22]

    While at San Quentin, Haggard started a gambling and brewing racket with his cellmate. After he was caught drunk, he was sent for a week to solitary confinement where he encountered Caryl Chessman, an author and death-row inmate.[23] Meanwhile, “Rabbit” had successfully escaped, only to shoot a police officer and be returned to San Quentin for execution.[22] Chessman’s predicament, along with the execution of “Rabbit,” inspired Haggard to change his life.[23] He soon earned a high school equivalency diploma and kept a steady job in the prison’s textile plant.[23] He also played for the prison’s country music band,[24] attributing a performance by Johnny Cash at the prison on New Year’s Day 1959 as his main inspiration to join it.[25] He was released from San Quentin on parole in 1960.[26]

    In 1972, after Haggard had become an established country music star, then-California governor Ronald Reagan granted Haggard a full and unconditional pardon for his past crimes.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merle_Haggard

  27. Griffin:

    While recently going down some rabbit hole on the web, I ended up at a Powerline tribute to Haggard after his death in 2016:
    ___________________________

    Like Elvis Presley and Ray Charles, Hag was a singer in whose voice one could hear all the strands of American popular music, but his writing establishes his legacy.

    https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/04/merle-haggard-rip.php
    ___________________________

    Ray Charles and Elvis Presley! That puts Haggard in Mt. Rushmore company.

  29. Apparently, she and her husband got divorced prior to the song’s coming out. In addition, her identity was a secret till she gave some interviews after Fogelberg’s death.

    Wiki’s cute. They offer a summary of her remarks in which she supposedly says that she kept quiet in 1980 because she ‘didn’t want to disrupt his marriage’ and then report he was first married in 1982.

    Taking Wiki at face value, we’d conclude she was married around about 1972 to an athletic coach (“architect” in the song) and had lost interest in him by the end of 1975. Hope the 2d husband got a better deal.

    Fogelberg doesn’t appear to have sired any children and wasn’t married to any of his wives longer than five years.

  31. Art Deco:

    She may have meant his relationship with the woman he eventually married two years after the song came out.

    Also, a relevant Fogelberg song on relationships is “Make Love Stay”.

    Foelberg’s last marriage, of five years, was ended by his death, not divorce or estrangement.

  32. I loved Fogelberg in college and bought his first two albums. He never performed in Omaha.

  33. Also, a relevant Fogelberg song on relationships is “Make Love Stay”.

    I haven’t an attention span long enough to get through it. And the lyrics are twaddle.

  41. Saw Fogelberg at the tiny Exit/In in Nashville in the early 1970s. Then saw him a few years later at the new Opry House right after Netherlands was released. Both were great shows.

    Neo — perspective:

    A Reason video posted at Instapundit claims that the Russians have lost $5 Billion worth of military equipment destroyed in a month of heavy fighting.

    Biden left $85 Billion worth of military equipment with the Taliban terrorists last summer.

    When that 85 Billion number was reported last summer, most people had no way of putting it in perspective. It was just another government-level really big number. Now we know how much war you can buy with that amount of stuff. Frightening.

  42. Chases Eagles:

    I was at a record store which allowed one to pick up a pair of headphones and listen to various CDs. On a whim I heard Eva Cassidy’s cover of “Fields of Gold.”

    I was enchanted. Even Sting himself said her version was beautiful. Buying more of her CDs did not disappoint.

    She was a self-taught talent who emerged from the Washington DC area, but never got a record deal — perhaps because her talent did not fit a pigeonhole. She sang pop, blues, rock, gospel, show tunes, everything, and with such natural talent and love it pierced one’s heart.

    Sadly she died young (33) of melanoma. Her break came after, when her manager sent a tape to Terry Wogan (a radio god in the UK) who played “Fields of Gold” and “Over the Rainbow” on his show.

    I’m an enthusiastic music fan, but I try not to push my taste on others. For Eva, I make an exception.

  43. “Longer” was the first Fogelberg song I ever heard, and I loved it enough that I bought the 45 in the 8th grade. I wasn’t a big fan of Fogleberg- I am not particularly fond of “Same Old Lang Syne”, but “Leader of the Band” is one I still like a lot.

    You don’t hear his music on the radio much anymore- I can’t even remember the last time I had heard a Dan Fogelberg song on the radio.

  44. The wedding scene in About Schmidt starts out with “Longer”, so at least it adorned a fine film.

  45. Pope Deco:

    Why in the world do you imagine anyone cares about your taste in music or anything else?

    In 95+% of your comments your sole purpose is to crap on what other people say and let us know how superior you consider your insights and opinions are over ours.

    So you toss bare YouTube links at us and imagine we are desperate for your guidance on what real good music is?

    I’m not that keen on Fogelberg myself, but I can understand why people like him and I can see the value he brings to the table and respect that, even if he’s not my cup of tea.

  46. You don’t hear his music on the radio much anymore- I can’t even remember the last time I had heard a Dan Fogelberg song on the radio.

    Yancey Ward:

    I think the 80s are the new Oldies and the 70s, except for megahits, have gone to the Great Graveyard in the Cloud.

    I remember driving to LA over New Year’s in 2000 and discovering that the 50s were no longer available on Oldies Stations and the 60s had become the new Oldies.

    Perhaps that’s particular to those SoCal Oldies Stations, but I’m sure there is some cut-off like that for commercially sensible reasons.

  47. Why in the world do you imagine anyone cares about your taste in music or anything else?

    It’s a thread that begins with the moderatrix offering an opinion and continues with other people offering their opinions. You offered a few of your own. You also offer one on my person, something upon which the moderatrix generally frowns.

  49. I don’t think Fogelberg was sentimental as much as he was just a balladeer. Sutter’s Mill https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttGmLC13p7s is not exactly sentimental, neither are such ballads as Pancho and Lefty by Townes van Zandt sung here by Haggard and Nelson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoKvUYbGu7A.

    If you think of Jimmy Buffet as the ant-Fogelberg, his first hit was A Pirate Looks at 40: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5M7gijb_1JQ.

    Hey, if ballads aren’t your thing, then rock out. I’ll keep swappin’ beers and I don’t cares.

  52. huxley and Chases Eagles, so much yes on Eva Cassidy. I got old enough that I hadn’t heard any new musicians who mattered to me in years and years. And then I somehow stumbled over Eva and was smitten. Unbelievable combination of such a rich, lovely, versatile voice and that profound emotional transparency — she was able to communicate emotion like nobody else I’ve heard. And I guess her tragic story is part of the power of it all — you’re hearing such a small fragment of what might have been.

    If you haven’t watched the video of her Blues Alley performance of Over the Rainbow (and if you have followed her, I’m sure you have) do so right this minute. I understand she had a cold and was unhappy with her performance, but the slight catches in her voice toward the end are part of its power. Much, much better than the studio version, which is itself splendid. Every time I listen, I wonder if the live audience had any idea what they were hearing. Same for the Blues Alley video of Autumn Leaves, which galvanized my pianist husband when I played it for him. “I’ve never heard anything like that!” he said. Neither had I.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

↑