I remember when it came out, I thought the opening melody of the verse was identical to the climax of the 1812 Overture. Later, I saw that the liner notes of the album included thanks to “Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky” for “inspiration”.
The song brings back no painful or poignant memories for me. I just wonder how pathetic you’d have to be to drink a six-pack in the car with an old flame.
Love gone wrong? I don’t get that interpretation at all. I see it as 2 people once in love, then life happens and life takes them on their separate ways. But when they see each other again they think on what might have been. They were very young, back then.
If that’s what you call love gone wrong, then okay. But when I hear love gone wrong, these aren’t the images I conjure.
She said she’s married her an architect
Who kept her warm and safe and dry
She would have liked to say she loved the man
But she didn’t like to lie
She doesn’t love the architect. Maybe she loves the singer, her old boyfriend.
I said the years had been a friend to her
And that her eyes were still as blue
But in those eyes I wasn’t sure if I saw
Doubt or gratitude
Again — doubt? Gratitude?
We drank a toast to innocence
We drank a toast to now
We tried to reach beyond the emptiness
But neither one knew how
This is wistful longing, forgotten but then realized right then and there. It’s about what might have been. What could have been.
(sigh)
I apologize for the confusion. When I said “it’s about love gone wrong,” I was replying to Maurie (in post #11) questioning my opinion that Wham!'s “Last Christmas” isn’t a Christmas song. No, I wouldn’t describe “Same Old Lang Syne” in those terms.
The parallel I was trying to draw to “Same Old Lang Syne” was that both songs have nothing to do with the Christmas / holiday season itself; they’re both about romantic love (one song positively / wistfully, the other more negatively), and just so happen to have been set during Christmas.
Yes, exactly this…wistful longing for what might have been
Well to be honest, it was a high school girlfriend and who really ends up marrying the person they dated in high school?
Dan errs here I feel when he calls her “my old lover”. It made her sound much, much older. But hey, it was the 70’s. Not something you would call a girl you took to a homecoming dance or sat beside in english.
I think he should have put in the lyrics some more background of the relationship.
Precisely this:
There was a girl my age that I used to see at the dojo. She would train on the same schedule as mine for a few months, then seem to disappear for a few months, then come back. I thought she was cute, we flirted a bit in class, and we clearly had similar interests (martial arts, reading, writing, social sciences, etc.) but she never stuck around after class and I never got a chance to ask her out. Our instructor once asked us to go check out a new (rival) dojo in town and pretend to be a couple with a kid we were considering enrolling. We took the assignment, took notes and rendered our observations, but nothing developed from that. I could see from my instructor’s expression that her attempt to do a bit of match-making had failed and she was disappointed.
I went on with my life, and so did the girl. I graduated college, went to Japan to teach English, and the dojo had closed by the time I returned.
A year after I returned to the States, I saw the girl behind me at a grocery store. I finished my business and waited around to chat with her – and she took an extra long time because she recognized me while she was emptying her cart and stopped to run over to me and give me a quick hug (which pissed off the dozens of customers in line behind her). Then there was a ton of stuff in her cart that she needed to put on the conveyor belt, and then she couldn’t remember her debit card PIN and almost locked up her account.
We stood behind her car in the summer afternoon sun and talked for about half an hour, even though a lot of her purchases were frozen foods. She explained the collection as “stocking up for the impending apocalypse” which she was certain was going to happen soon. She explained she had gotten involved in some survival training and another dojo that taught 32 martial arts as one big combat method and that was exciting to her because she never knew what they’d teach the next time she attended a class and sometimes it wasn’t about fighting but about astrology or numerology or wearing the right clothing to stay safe and send the right messages to observers and potential predators. As an example, she pointed to some of the vegetables in the cart and noted how one’s diet can generate offensive or attractive or neutral pheremones to people one might want to ward off or entice or just appear to be professional for.
She invited me to dinner and I suddenly remembered that, since I was taking care of my aging mother, I needed to get my recently-purchased groceries home and make dinner.
We hugged, she gave me a peck on the cheek, and tore a paper grocery bag to give me her phone number.
As walked away, very consciously not helping her load her grocery bags into the trunk of her car, I thought, “God I’m glad I never got involved with her!”
Now, every time I hear that song, I think of that chance encounter and what was never meant to be.
–G!
What it made me think of, is how much better a song this is:
I think this song also brings up the issue that for many people, christmas is the loneliest and toughest holiday of the year. Especially if you are without someone in your life or family.
Now, could a musician like Dan Fogelberg who is on the road alot be lonely for a HS sweetheart?
Personally, I could see that happening pretty much as the song outlines if I ran into my ex. She’s remarried twice, but I would want to talk with her about life if I ever ran into her.
Given the date and that it’s autobiographical, Fogelberg was around 24 when he encountered what I assume was an ex girlfriend from his days at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Which is a lot younger and a much shorter time frame than I always imagined for the characters in the song.
I always sort of pictured a couple in their 30s or 40s who hadn’t seen each other for 5-10 years or so. And like most people you reconnect with from your past, it’s exciting and comforting to reconnect. But one you get caught up on the “what have you been doing for the past x years” conversation, there’s not a whole lot to talk about and you go back to your lives.
Also drinking half a six pack and then driving off into the snow/rain is never a great idea.
I first heard that song when i was 17. It played on the Christmas track at work, and it made me cry one too many times. It was 20 years later, thanks to google, that i managed to track it down again. So, for me, it reminds me of my past.
And thanks very much. I managed to shed a few tears listening to it again.
I love this song. All you naysayers can suck it. 
It’s not a bad song at all (and I’ve been a Fogelberg fan since the mid '70s). I just don’t think it’s a Christmas song. 
My reaction:
Ugh glurge, need an insulin shot.
Also feel sorry for the architect.
What comes to my mind is that Dan Fogelberg should have married him a lyricist.
mmm
I believe they were high school sweethearts, not college lovers. They were back home in Peoria to be with their families on Xmas Eve. One was sent out for eggnog, the other for whipped cream if I remember correctly. They went to the same neighborhood Quickie Mart and that’s where it all started.
I’m remembering all this from reading an interview that the woman gave about the song and I think it was after Fogelberg died. She had married a gym teacher or coach and she herself was a teacher in Chicago. I’m sure there was some artistic license in the song, including the architect bit. She said she first heard it on the car radio in Chicago and quickly realized the song was about her. At some point she divorced her husband and years later she was teaching in suburban St. Louis. (The last according to a deejay there several years ago.)
What springs to mind for me is that it is illegal to drink beer, or have an open container of liquor, in a car.
I haven’t seen any old girlfriends in years, but I would at least invite her to come home with me (if my wife was home).
Regards,
Shodan
In December 1975 in Colorado, maybe it wasn’t.
Dan Fogelberg: Same Auld Lang Syne. The lady’s name is (was) Jill Anderson Greulich.
I’m including lengthy quotes below because web content sometimes changes.
From Wikipedia, Same Old Lang Syne - Wikipedia
And there’s also this, from https://atkinsbookshelf.wordpress.com/2014/12/31/the-story-behind-same-old-lang-syne-by-dan-fogelberg/:
Image searches for Jill Anderson Greulich yield these:
Jill Anderson Greulich - Google Search (she’s on the far right)
Jill Anderson Greulich - Google Search (she’s in row 2)