Talk:Far Above Cayuga's Waters

Untitled
Page created by User:Xtreambar May 2005.

Removal of "Parodies" section
I do not believe the inclusion of unsourced parodies enhances the usefulness of this article. Any lyric may have sophomoric parodies made of it, but unless those parodies become notable in their own right in an independently-verifiable way, there is no justification I can see for including those parodies within the article of the original song. Don't get me wrong- I went through a phase in which I wrote dozens of song parodies myself- but I wouldn't go and add the alternate sets of lyrics to the original songs' articles. It makes no sense. --Notyourbroom (talk) 01:04, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Parody Verification
The NBC old time radio classic show "X-Minus One" has an episode entitled "Time and Time Again" which was broadcast on 1/11/1956. In this episode, one of the characters actually sings a piece of this awful smell parody. It was, apparently, identifiable and funny enough to include in the script at that time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.43.11.151 (talk) 18:58, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree that this parody must have a long history and some broad appeal. I am age 71 now. When I was 11 at summer camp there was a counselor who was a Cornell student, and the entire camp body used to sing this parody and roar with laughter. About all I knew about Cornell was that it was a college, and I had no idea that what we sang was a parody (or perhaps even what a parody was).72.185.192.193 (talk) 22:02, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

The edits by 99.10.124.174
see here

I reverted these edits because: &mdash;Notyourbroom ( talk ) 15:12, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) It's already established in the lead what the melody of the song comes from.
 * 2) The other institutions borrowed Cornell's alma mater and altered or re-wrote the lyrics&mdash;it is not the case that they originally and separately came up with the idea to use the traditional melody and worked at it from scratch.
 * 3) Thus, it's more appropriate to characterize the situation as other institutions using the melody from "Far Above Cayuga's Waters", which happens to use the melody from Annie Lisle.

List of institutions with alma maters inspired by Cornell's
This article has been on my watchlist for a long time (perhaps ~18 months?) and most of the edits I see to it are people adding their own college or high school to the ever-growing list of institutions mentioned in the article. At one point, I tried to cut out all of the high schools, but there are still a ton of universities listed. I'd like to cut that list down to perhaps five exemplars and then add an in-line comment asking editors not to add any more to the list. I just don't see the value in mentioning a large, arbitrary subset of institutions by name, since it would be very difficult (and of questionable value) to "do the list right" by making it exhaustive. Surely a small list of five or so would suffice for illustrating the fact that the tune has been adopted by other institutions. Any comments or dissenting views? &mdash;Bill Price (nyb) 15:08, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Needs further development
Bill Price, I think this article needs further development, not less (besides, which schools would survive the cut, if you're only taking five?).

The real issue that needs more investigation is why so many schools, many of them among the most highly reputed in the country (Swarthmore, for crying out loud), adopted as their alma mater a song so clearly identified with another school -- not just the musical setting but often many, most, or virtually all of the same words.

In some cases there were close personal ties between leading figures at Cornell and other schools (Acadia University in Canada, Swarthmore, Indiana University), but that doesn't explain all of them; and some schools like Stanford, which did have those close relations, did not adopt this song. Many of the schools were part of the academic reform movement that swept the United States in the 19th century -- this would include Cornell, Swarthmore and a number of state universities, but also would include Oberlin, Antioch and Stanford, which did not adopt this song, and many of the schools that adopted the song had little or nothing to do with that academic reform movement. Some of the schools that adopted the song are in fact much older than Cornell (William and Mary).

The song became extremely popular in the last decades of the 19th century, but I'm not sure that explains everything. I think that any research that can shed light on this would be appreciated by many readers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hotel de glace (talk • contribs) 16:21, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

All verses restored
Four verses of the song were removed and replaced by assorted parodies, which actually took up more space than what was left of the original. I restored the missing verses and removed the parodies, which someone (I suspect from a rival school) has repeatedly tried to edit into this article. The reasons not to include parodies were well stated in an earlier contribution, above. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lisbon1974 (talk • contribs) 16:49, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I have removed the four verses you added back. Lyrics shouldn't be quoted at length on Wikipedia. If the lyrics are copyrighted, this doesn't qualify as a fair use. If they aren't copyrighted, they properly belong on Wikisource anyway. Esrever (klaT) 21:44, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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History?
The "History" section of this article contains precious little—I would venture to say none—actual history of the song (its composition, revisions, etc). What little history appears in the article is in the intro. Either the History section should be extensively rewritten, or it should be renamed. --Piledhigheranddeeper (talk) 18:25, 25 February 2021 (UTC)