You can barely hear it, but it's there; each year on "Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve," amid the ruckus of Times Square in the moments after midnight, a gentle, plaintive big-band version of "Auld Lang Syne" hums along softly. It's the sound of the New Year in the English-speaking world, but only a phantom presence in the broadcast beamed to those of us not unhinged enough to camp out all night in midtown. A remnant of an age well before Ryan Seacrest, listening to this recording takes us back to a time when Dick Clark, TV, and rock and roll vied against Guy Lombardo (and the Royal Canadians), radio, and sweet jazz for the ears of Americans on New Year's Eve.

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