The Iceman Cometh

Robert and I rented La Vie en Rose this weekend, (we also rented The Simpsons Movie just in case you think we’re too foofy …), and he busted out a good Iceman-ism I thought I’d share. There is a scene during the movie where a bar is singing Auld Lang Syne on New Year’s Eve and Robert says to me: “Did people sing Odd Long Sang back in 1936?” To which I responded, with a smirk: “Huh?” He could tell he’d stuck his foot in his mouth and tried frantically to backtrack – “Old Long Song? Odd Song Lang?” and many other iterations thereto. By this point, I was cracking up and he was quite frustrated. :o) He makes me laugh … for a smart guy, he can be pretty dumb sometimes!

Just as an aside – the answer to Robert’s question is yes, people probably did sing Odd Long Sang back in 1936. Courtesy of Wikipedia:

The ProQuest newspaper archive has articles dated 1896 that describe revelers on both sides of the Atlantic singing the song to usher in the New Year … Examples follow:
"New Year's Eve in London" (1910) – Usual Customs Observed by People of All Classes… The passing of the old year was celebrated in London much as usual. The Scottish residents gathered outside of St. Paul's Church and sang “Auld Lang Syne” as the last stroke of 12 sounded from the great bell.

Granted the movie takes place in France but let’s just assume that the song was sung all across Europe, shall we?