Happy New Year, a melancholic song sung amidst a joyful occasion.

At the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve, Vietnamese people often listen to ABBA's "Happy New Year." This is perhaps one of the most listened to and sung songs in the world at this time, even though it's not entirely a cheerful or uplifting piece of music.

ABBA group. Photo: Ninebynine

This song was written in the late 1970s, when the band ABBA was preparing to break up, and when existential philosophy coexisted with the events of the time around the world: the Middle East conflict with the Soviet war in Afghanistan, the US-Soviet arms race, Pol Pot's genocide…

Those were turbulent years, making it difficult for the two ABBA members to write a cheerful song. Although hope is still present in the song, sadness sets the tone:

No more champagne.
And the fireworks are through.
Here we are, me and you.
Feeling lost and feeling blue.
It's the end of the party.
And the morning seems so gray.
So unlike yesterday...

(Champagne is no longer available)
And the fireworks have gone out.
You and I are sitting here.
Feeling the loss
The party is over.
And the dawn seemed to have a gloomy color.
(Not like yesterday...).

For Vietnam, those were the early post-war years, but the border war in the North was still ongoing. At that time, I don't know if Vietnam broadcast "Happy New Year" on the radio for Vietnamese people to hear, but for me, the first New Year's Day celebrations I remember already included "Happy New Year."

During my middle school years, when televisions first appeared, I began to learn English. "Happy New Year" was a song that many students at the time would copy down by hand to learn the lyrics and practice translating it into English. I still vividly remember the music video for this song, with a woman in a white dress sitting alone on a sofa after a party had ended, and a man standing far away looking out the window…

The scene depicts "It's the end of the party" in the music video for the song Happy New Year.

Perhaps after all the New Year's Eve parties, when "No more champagne. And the fireworks are through...", we finally confront our innermost feelings, as the song goes:

"Oh yes, man is a fool"
And he thinks he'll be okay
Dragging on, feet of clay
Never knowing he's astray
Keeps on going anyway...

(Oh well, yes, humans are a bunch of fools/ Always thinking they'll be alright/ Dragging their muddy feet/ Never knowing they're lost/ Just keep going regardless...).

And we then realized that:

Those were the dreams we had before.

Are all dead, nothing more

Than confetti on the floor...

(All the dreams we once had are dead now, nothing remains but the remains of paper flowers on the floor.)

Along with Happy New Year, another song whose lyrics were parodyed and known by almost every Vietnamese child of my generation went like this: "Oh, Robert swings, Tarzan parachutes, Zoro shoots. Forward, which ghost comes out? The Westerner is terrified, the lizard loses its tail."

Those of you who participate in group activities may also know another Vietnamese version of this song: "Now we, brothers and sisters, bid farewell with lingering feelings. Though far apart, we still hope that one day we will meet again."

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This melody is from the world's most popular New Year's song - Auld Lang Syne (Old Long Since). Auld Lang Syne is sung at midnight on New Year's Eve all over the world, more often than Happy New Year.

This is a traditional folk song that the Scottish poet Robert Burns recorded as having been transcribed from the voice of an old man and published in 1788.
This song's lyrics are full of memories and farewells:

“Should old acquaintances be forgotten,

and never brought to mind?

Should old acquaintances be forgotten,

and would lang syne?

[...]

We two have run about the slopes,

and picked the daisies fine;

but we've wandered many a weary foot,

since auld lang syne

Should we forget about old acquaintances?

And never remember?

Should we forget the familiar things of the past?

And what about those days long gone?

[...]

We ran up the slopes,

Pick the wildflowers;

but we wandered around with weary feet,

from ancient times).

The most famous portrait of the poet Robert Burns was painted by the Scottish master painter Alexander Nasmyth in 1787. Photo: Poetry Foundation

Perhaps no time of year is more needed for solitude than the transition from the old year to the new. Just like Christmas, after a busy season of preparation, Christmas Eve is when people need solitude the most. Solitude for all the joys and sorrows of the past, for the intertwining of old and new, and sometimes even for the emptiness. Writing this, I suddenly remember a line from Nguyen Huy Thiep's poem "Nostalgia for the Countryside": "Gently with old friends - Let whoever cries or laughs."

But bothHappy New YearandAuld Lang SyneWe all have beliefs and hopes for tomorrow. These are hopes for friendship, for a new world opening up, for prosperity rising from the ashes… Because without hope and effort, we will collapse and perish, as the song "Happy New Year" says.

“Happy new year. Happy new year.

May we all have our hopes, we will to try.

If we don't we might as well lay down and die.

You and I.

Sometimes I see
How the brave new world arrives
And I see how it thrives
In the ashes of our lives.

It's the line "We'll take a cup o' kindness yet, For auld lang syne" from the song Auld Lang Syne.

Happy New YearandAuld Lang Synealikefirst springThat's the essence of composer Van Cao's work in Vietnamese music. An "ordinary season," a "vast today," but it's a "season of joy that has arrived"...

According to PLO