Traditional Scottish Farewell Song “The Parting Glass” Hits A Heart Note At Funerals

The traditional Scottish farewell song “The Parting Glass” is best paired with a loved one’s favorite drink and some warm-hearted company. Before Robert Burns wrote “Auld Lang Syne” — a tune still greatly favored to say goodbye to the year as it goes out — it was purpotedly the most popular song in Scotland and Ireland to wrap up a night of joviality with good friends. In the spirit of wrapping up unfinished business, “The Parting Glass” includes in the first few stanzas:

Of all the money, e’er I had,
I spent it in good company,
And all the harm I have ever done,
‘Alas it was to none but me.

And all I’ve done for want of wit,
To memory now I can’t recall,
So fill to me the parting glass,
Goodnight and joy be with you all.

Credit: quotesvalley.com

As a song to remember a loved one, this is a particularly powerful choice, as it seems to roll toward us from the other side. This voice is mature and recognizes the Self in the Other (“all the harm I have ever done,/’Alas it was to none but me), and blithely releases whatever isn’t important (“all I’ve done for want of wit/To memory now I can’t recall). As a life comes to its end, many of us seek and wish this kind of resolution. There’s something reassuring about imagining a loved one evolving toward a state where they can blithely and easily say, “fill to me the parting glass/Goodnight and joy be with you all.” Indeed, the wordplay further along speaks to this levity:

But since it fell into my lot,
That I should rise and you should not,
I’ll gently rise and softly call,
Goodnight and joy be to you all.

Fill to me the parting glass,
And drink a health whate’er befalls,
Then gently rise and softly call,
Goodnight and joy be to you all.

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To depart is to “rise”; there is a soft joke here when departing alludes to death. That we will not rise along with our loved one turns the tables on death as something to be feared or averted. Here, the narrative voice seems to almost chuckle at the pleasure of “softly call[ing] goodnight.” However, in the following stanza the song bids us to rise up from the sorrow of parting to join in that soft call of “Goodnight and joy be to you all.”

Listen to “A Parting Glass” in the video below, then click here to read the complete lyrics.