Dan Fogelberg - "Same Old Lang Syne"

0:03 Callaroga Shark Media. I'm Garrett Fisher and On Christmas Eve nineteen seventy five, Dan Fogelberg was visiting his parents in Peoria, Illinois. His family wanted Irish coffee, so someone needed to run out for whipping cream. Fogelberg, twenty four years old and just starting to find success as a singer songwriter, volunteered to make the trip. A few blocks away in the Abington Hill neighborhood, Jill Anderson was at her parents' house with her husband and some family friends. They'd run out of eggnog. Her mother asked her to go buy some. It was Christmas Eve, almost everything was closed. The only store open was a convenience store at the top of Abington Hill at thirteen two East Frye Avenue and Prospect Road, the Convenient Food Mart. Jill got there first. Dan walked in and saw her immediately. She was standing in the front and food section. They dated throughout high school, on again, off again, from nineteen sixty five to nineteen sixty nine.

1:07 At Woodruff High School, they were both Class of sixty nine. After graduation, they'd tried to keep it going while at different colleges. Jill went to Western Illinois University to study elementary education. Dan went to the University of Illinois and Urbana to study theater. They dated intermittently during college, but gradually lost touch when Fogelberg moved to Colorado to pursue music. Jill had moved to Chicago become a teacher, gotten married. They hadn't seen or spoken to each other in years, and now here they were in a convenience store on Christmas Eve, both sent on errands by their families. What happened next became one of the most perfectly crafted story songs in popular music history. But first we need to understand who Dan Fogelberg was in nineteen seventy five, because that context matters. Vogelberg was born in Peoria in nineteen fifty one. His father was a high school band director, so music was in the house from the beginning. Dan played multiple instruments, wrote poetry, had that sensitive artistic kid thing going. At the University of Illinois, he discovered folk music and started writing songs seriously. In nineteen seventy two, he released his first album, Home Free, which didn't do much commercially but got him noticed. His second album, Souvenirs, produced by Joe Walsh of the Eagles, came out in nineteen seventy four and did better. By nineteen seventy five, he'd had his first top forty hits. Part of the

2:39 Plan hit number thirty one that year. So in December nineteen seventy five, when he came home for Christmas, Fogelberg was an emerging artist, successful enough to have a record deal and some radio airplay, but not yet a star. He was still figuring out who he was as a songwriter, what his voice was. And then he walked into that convenience store and saw Jill Anderson. According to Jill's later account, because she stayed silent about this for decades, she didn't recognize him. At first, he changed. She was focused on finding eggnog. Then he touched her on the sleeve and her eyes flew open wide. She went to hug him and spilled her purse. They stood there, laughing until they cried, picking up the contents of her purse in a convenience store on Christmas Eve while snow fell outside. The awkwardness kicked in. At the checkout counter, the cashier rang up their purchases, her eggnog, his whipping cream whatever else they'd grabbed, and they stood there, conversation lagging, not sure what to say to each other. Finally, Dan suggested they go get a drink catch up properly, but it was Christmas Eve in Peoria. Nothing was open. They walked around looking for a bar and found nothing, so they bought a six pack of beer at a liquor store. Fogelburn bought Olympia beer, according to Jill's memory, and they drank it in her car for two hours, just talking. Remember this is nineteen

4:11 seventy five, before cell phones. Their families were waiting for them to return with whipping cream and eggnog. This errand was taking way longer than it should have, but Dan and Jill were lost in conversation, trying to reconnect, trying to understand who they'd each become. According to what Jill later revealed, the conversation covered everything their marriages. Hers was troubled, loveless, secure but empty his music career. He loved performing, but hated the constant traveling. They drank toasts, to innocence, to now, to old time sake. They tried to reach beyond the emptiness of their lives, but neither one quite knew how.

4:52 At the end, when the beer was empty and they'd run out of things to say, Jill kissed Dan on the cheek. He got out of the car and watched her dry, and as he walked back to his parents' house, the snow turned into rain. That detail is important. Fogelberg later confirmed that the snow really did turn into rain. It wasn't poetic license, it actually happened. For a moment, walking home in the rain, Fogelberg felt like he was back in school, feeling that old, familiar pain of their breakup. Then he went home, presumably with whipping cream for the Irish coffee, and Christmas continued. Five years past. Fogelberg's career took off longer, hit number two in nineteen eighty, Hart Hotels went to number twenty one. He was becoming a major adult contemporary artist, the kind of singer songwriter who filled arenas and sold millions of records, And one day in nineteen eighty he sat down and started writing about that night in the convenience store. Later, he'd say he initially thought the song was a joke, essentially laughing at himself as he looked back on that fateful encounter. But as he wrote, something shifted. He realized this wasn't a throwaway, this was important. Let's talk about the craft of this song, because same Old lang Sign is masterfully constructed. First, the title same Old lang Sign is a play on ald lang Sign, the traditional Scottish song sung on New Year's Eve.

6:25 Ald lang sign means old long since, or more loosely, for old time's sake. It's about remembering the past, about old friends, about nostalgia. Bogelberg's title keeps the lang sign part but adds same old, suggesting that this encounter, this conversation is just another version of what they'd always done, same old patterns, same old feelings, same old inability to quite connect. Second, the structure the song is pure narrative, told in past tense first person, like a short story, setup, encounter, conversation, resolution, But Fogelberg uses incredible restraint. He doesn't over explain, he doesn't tell you how to feel. He just shows you what happened, detail by detail, and lets the emotion emerge from the specifics. Look at the opening, met my old lover in the grocery store. The snow was falling Christmas Eve, I stole behind her in the frozen foods, and I touched her on the sleeve. In four lines, you know exactly where you are and what's happening. The detail of frozen foods is perfect, specific visual ordinary. This isn't romantic.

7:42 It's a grocery store. Life is mundane, even when emotionally significant. Third, the musical composition. This is where Fogelberg shows serious sophistication. The main vocal melody, the met my old lover in the grocery store phrase is taken directly from Chaikov's He's eighteen twelve overture, specifically the famous French horn part. It's not subtle if you know what you're listening for, but most people don't recognize it. Fogelberg essentially borrowed from classical music, the same way Paul Simon did with American Tune from Bach or Billy Joel did with this Night Action from Beethoven. Why Tchaikovsky's eighteen twelve overture. That piece is about war, about Napoleon's invasion of Russia, about conflict and resolution. There's something quietly brilliant about using a melody associated with war and struggle for a song about two people who can't quite bridge the gap between them. The personal becomes epic, the intimate borrows grandeur, and then there's the ending, Michael Brecker's soprano saxophone solo, playing an improvised jazzy version of auld lang Sign. Brecker was a giant of smooth jazz.

8:57 He'd played with Steely Dan, Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, everyone. Fogelberg got him for this session, and Brecker delivered something both mournful and beautiful. That sax solo ties everything together. The title references ald lang Sign. The lyrics are about remembering old times, and the song literally ends with the melody of old lang Sign being played. It's elegant, circular perfect fourth, and this is crucial. Fogelberg writes specific details that make the story feel real because it was real, but even if it hadn't been, these details would make it feel authentic. She went to hug me, and she spilled her purse and we laughed until we cried. That's not a cliche moment. That's what actually happens when you unexpectedly run into someone in a store. We stood there, lost in our embarrassment as the conversation lagged Anyone who's ever run into an ax knows this exact feeling. She said she'd 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.

10:09 This is devastating without being dramatic. It's just honest. The song is full of these moments. They're not flashy, they're just true. Bogelberg released Same Old Lang Sign as a single in November nineteen eighty. It entered the Billboard Hot one hundred on December twenty seventh, right between Christmas and New Year's Eve, which couldn't have been better timing, and peaked at number nine in February nineteen eighty one. Here's where it gets interesting from a business perspective. The song was a hit, climbing the charts, getting constant radio play. People wanted to buy the album, but there was no album. Fogelberg's record company was going crazy. What had happened was this.

10:52 Bogelberg had originally planned to put Same Old Lang Sign on a standard album, but on New Year's Eve, while the single was climbing charts, he sat down to sequence the album and had an epiphany. This shouldn't be a regular album. It should be a double album, a song cycle, a concept album, tracing the arc of life from nostalgia through the present. So he spent another six months writing new songs to fill out the vision. When the album, The Innocent Age finally came out in August nineteen eighty one, same old Lang Sign was the last track on the first disc. The weight had driven the record company nuts, but it was worth it. The album went double platinum, over two million copies sold. Three more singles from it hit the top twenty. Meanwhile, five years after that convenience store encounter, in early nineteen eighty, Jill Anderson Groulitch was driving to work in Chicago. She was a flight attendant for twa heading to O'Hare before dawn. It was still dark out. The radio was on. A song came on.

11:57 It sounded like Dan. She didn't remember him having a new song, so she was excited to hear his voice. Then she started listening to the lyrics. Oh my gosh, she thought, Wait, the grocery store, Christmas Eve, the snow, the beer in the car, the conversation about her marriage, all of it she knew immediately this song was about her, about them, about that night in the convenience store, and she said nothing. She told a few close friends who already knew the story, but publicly she stayed silent. Fogelberg never revealed her identity. Only a handful of people knew who the old lover in the song was. Why did she stay quiet? Respect for Fogelberg's privacy, respect for her own privacy. She was remarried by then, had her own life, and maybe because the song belonged to everyone who'd ever run into an old love and felt that same mix of nostalgia and sadness. Years later, backstage at a Fogelberg concert, they had a conversation about the song. He apologized for two inaccuracies. First, in the song, he says her eyes were still as blue Jill's eyes are green. When they dated in high school, Fogelberg had called her sweet Jillian green Eyes, a play on her full first name and a reference to a Crosby, Stills and Nash song, But Blue rhymed better with what he needed for the next line,

13:28 so he changed it poetic license. Second, in the song, she's married to an architect. In reality, her husband was a physical education teacher. Fogelberg probably didn't even know what her husband did for a living. Architect sounded more specific, more evocative. It suggested someone practical, someone who builds stable structures, which fit the theme of her marrying for security rather than passion. Jill didn't mind either change. She understood songwriting requires choice. The emotional truth was accurate, even if some details were adjusted. Fogelberg died of prostate cancer on December sixteenth, two thousand and seven. He was fifty six years old.

14:12 In those final years, he'd been fighting the disease while still performing, still creating. A Few days after his death, Jill Anderson Grillish decided it was time to come forward. Fogelberg had protected her identity for twenty seven years. Now that he was gone, she felt she owed it to him and his fans to tell her side of the story. She contacted the Peoria Journal Star and gave an interview published on December twenty second, two thousand and seven. She confirmed the basic facts of the song, the convenience store, the beer in the car. The two hour conversation, she explained the two inaccuracies about her eye color and husband's profession, she shared details that only she would know. The response was overwhelming. Fans of the song had always suspected it was autobiographical. It felt too specific, too detailed to be fiction.

15:04 But having confirmation having the actual person step forward who gave the song new depth. In two thousand and eight, the city of Peoria gave the street where that convenience store sits an honorary designation, Fogelberg Parkway. It runs right by the parking lot where they drank beer in her car on Christmas Eve nineteen seventy five. The convenience store still exists. It's now called Shortstop Food Mart. If you wanted to, you could go there today, stand in the frozen food section and imagine Dan Fogelberg touching Jill Anderson on the sleeve. Same old Lang sign became a staple of holiday radio, both Christmas and New Year's. The opening lyrics mentioned snowfalling on Christmas Eve and the ending references ald Lang Sign, so it fits both holidays. Some radio stations initially banned it in the early nineteen eighties because of the alcohol reference drinking beer in a car, but the song's popularity was too great it became unavoidable during December.

16:15 The song's appeal is its universality. Almost everyone has experienced some version of what Fogelberg describes running into an x, wondering what might have been, having that awkward conversation where you try to catch up but realize you're living completely different lives now, feeling that mix of nostalgia, regret and acceptance. The line just for a moment, I was back at school and felt that old, familiar pain hits because we've all felt it. That instant transport to the past, to when we were young and the world was full of possibility and heartbreak felt enormous. And that final image, the snow turning into rain as he walks home. It's perfect.

17:01 Snow is romantic, nostalgic. Christmas Eve, magic. Rain is reality present, tense, the cold truth that you can't go back. The transformation from snow to rain mirrors the transformation in Fogelberg himself. For a moment, he was back at school. Then the moment passed and he was an adult walking home in the rain. The song has been covered by various artists, but none have matched Fogelberg's original. Train did a version for a Dan Fogelberg tribute album. The Backstreet Boys covered it for their Christmas album in twenty twenty two, though they omitted the final verse and ended with the chorus to Aldlang Sign instead, but the original remains definitive. Fogelberg's vocal is intimate, conversational, perfectly calibrated. He's not over selling the emotion. He's just telling you what happened and letting the details do the work. Michael Brecker, who played that iconic saxophone solo, died in January two thousand and seven, just eleven months before Fogelberg. He was fifty seven, also taken by cancer. That sax solo became Brecker's most recognizable work for many people, even though he'd played on countless jazz and rock albums. It's the thing people remember, that mournful, beautiful ald lang Sign melody floating over the end of Fogelberg's story. Jill Groilitch, now in her seventies and retired in Saint Louis, still listens to the song. According to interviews, she listens hard to every word. Her husband isn't jealous,

18:33 he's excited when it comes on. She considers it an honor to be part of popular music history, even if for twenty seven years she was the secret at the heart of the song. She said publicly that she's glad Dan was part of her life that Christmas. Even counter in nineteen seventy five, that two hour conversation in a car drinking Olympia beer while their families wondered where they were with the whipping cream and eggnog. It became something lasting, something that touches millions of people every holiday season. There's something about same old lang sign that captures what the holidays actually feel like for many people. Not the hallmark version, not families gathered in perfect harmony around a fireplace, but the real version, the complicated version, coming home to your hometown and seeing who you used to be, running into people from your past, and measuring the distance between then and now, feeling grateful for your life while simultaneously mourning the paths not taken. The song validates that melancholy. It says it's okay to feel wistful during the holidays. It's okay to wonder about old loves and old choices. It's okay to drink a toast to innocence even when you know you can't get it back. Dan Fogelberg took ninety minutes in a convenience store parking lot and turned it into a three and a half minute masterpiece that borrows from Tchaikovsky, ends with old lang signe, and tells a story that feels both deeply personal and completely universal. He thought it was a joke when he started writing it.

20:05 Then he realized it was important. Turns out it was both. It's a song that takes life seriously while acknowledging the absurdity of it. Two successful adults sitting in a car on Christmas Eve, drinking beer they bought at a liquor store because all the bars were closed, trying to figure out what happened to the people they used to be. The song is now played in offices where people barely notice it background music while they work, but every now and then someone hears a line that hits them. They stop what they're doing, they listen. Time stops. Forty four years after Dan Fogelberg walked into a convenience store for whipping cream and found his high school girlfriend in the frozen foods, the song is still doing that, still stopping time, still making people feel seen in their complicated holiday emotions, and somewhere the snow is still turning into rain. That's Hip Maker Chronicles. I'm Garrett Fisher, Happy New Year. Thank you for spending this year with us,