Talk:The Lost Chord

Unencyclopedic
As noted at What Wikipedia is not, Wikipedia is not:


 * Mere collections of public domain or other source material such as entire books or source code, original historical documents, letters, laws, proclamations, and other source material that are only useful when presented with their original, un-modified wording. Complete copies of primary sources (including mathematical tables, astronomical tables, or source code) should go into Wikisource.

An article that just quotes a poem is not encyclopedic. "The Lost Chord" should not have its own article unless there is something more to say about it than merely quoting its text.

By the way, I think it might be possible to write such an article about this song, but as it stands the article is unencyclopedic. Marc Shepherd 07:52, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Ow, ow! The pink tag is hurting my eyes!! I wrote something. Can we take the tag off now?Ssilvers 17:13, 8 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Plenty of content here now, so unencyclopedic has been removed.

If the intention is not to have the poem in a separate article, then why does the article on Adelaide Anne Procter have specialized links to cited poems such as Cleansing Fires that, when clicked, bring up an edit page called "Editing Cleansing Fires"? Links that bring up an editor to add content which is not considered desirable are confusing links and should not exist in the first place. Should those links be removed from the original article? JohnD39 16:32, 13 July 2006 (UTC)


 * You're right. I have removed them.


 * In general, Wikipedia is not the place for the text of literary works. We have Wikisource for that. I believe it is considered acceptable to quote the source of a short poem, when there is something more substantial to say about it&mdash;as there is for "The Lost Chord." Comparable examples include the Major-General's Song and The Vicar of Bray. Those redlinks in the Procter article were not likely ever to generate acceptable articles in their own right, so I've removed them. Marc Shepherd 16:43, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Fred Sullivan and relevance
The current edit says:
 * Several of the operas that Sullivan had written up to that time, and nearly all his other music for theatre was for works in which Fred was engaged as an actor, so it can be supposed that Sullivan was close to his brother, and went out of his way to help his theatrical career.

As far as I know, the only works by Arthur Sullivan in which Fred Sullivan appeared as an actor &mdash; were operas. At the time of Fred's death, Sullivan's only other theatrical works were a ballet and four sets of incidental music to plays by Shakespeare. Was Fred Sullivan a dancer or a Shakespearean actor? Not to my knowledge.

Perhaps the whole Fred Sullivan paragraph should be shortened. Apparently the idea is to show that Sullivan was close to his brother, but it can generally be assumed that the loss of a brother at such a young age would be invariably tragic, even if the brother had had no theatrical career. Marc Shepherd 21:29, 9 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I took out the stuff on the other plays on July 10.  -- Ssilvers 17:59, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

There is no stated relevance of all these details about the composer's brother to this song, and at that point we can't see where it's going. The whole paragraph should be moved to the page about Fred, and deleted from here. 82.32.170.77 (talk) 10:57, 21 October 2015 (UTC)


 * I've shortened the paragraph further and clarified its relevance. I believe that it is essential to the article, as it explains the brothers' relationship and why the composer was inspired by his brother's death to write the song. -- Ssilvers (talk) 20:14, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Arthur Sullivan comment on the song
The booklet supplied with the original motion picture soundtrack cd of "Topsy Turvy" states on page 27 that Arthur Sullivan "requested that this song never be performed in burlesque". 4 February 2010 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.25.126.148 (talk) 12:33, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Addenda
It should perhaps be noted that the words of "Onward, Christian soldiers" were not written by Arthur Sullivan, but by Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould in 1865. Sullivan later wrote the music to it. Also, that "The Lost Chord" came close to being ridiculed out of existence; as a result of Victorian capability of combining sentimentality with pedantic fussiness. Hence the passage: "I know not what I was playing Or what I was dreaming then; But I struck one chord of music Like the sound of a great Amen" was to their ears a fatal blooper, since "Amen" is clearly two chords.122.59.10.108 (talk) 23:44, 17 September 2015 (UTC)


 * I don't think we need to mention Baring-Gould. The title of the song "Onward, Christian soldiers" is blue-linked, so anyone who wants more info about that song can click on it.  As to the second point, see WP:V and WP:OR for more information. -- Ssilvers (talk) 02:16, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Unavailable Youtube video corrected
The video originally linked at the bottom of the page is no longer available. I changed the link however my edit was reverted back to the unavailable video. I have changed it back to the available video because I do not think that providing a link to a video that one is unable to watch is a good idea. I understand that the reversion could have been a simple mistake. if there is a genuine reason why the initial edit was reverted, I would like to know why. If you believe you have a good reason to do so, then you may change it back again however please provide me with your reasoning so that I may understand the reversion, Thank you. Titandawnstar1216 (talk) 23:19, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

After looking over some information I have realized that the reversion was done by a copyright bot. I apologize I am new here and did not realize that was a thing that could happen. I believe that the original song is currently in the public domain. I'm aware that the version provided is a cover however considering that the song was already provided here in the 1st place with no issue I am keeping this change. if this happens again, I will not enquire nor make a talk page post about it I will simply manually revert it and call it good. Titandawnstar1216 (talk) 23:28, 24 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Even though the song is in the public domain, I don't know if Butt's recording is in the public domain. The idiotic US Music Modernization Act (2018) has recaptured zillions of old recordings from the public domain.  -- Ssilvers (talk) 23:46, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Date of poem
I note that 1858 is given in the article as the year of the poem's first publication (in the English Woman's Journal). I cannot see it in any of the 1858 editions, but it does appear on page 36 of the March 1860 edition. https://ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj Bkesselman (talk) 16:57, 10 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I'll try to check on this. -- Ssilvers (talk) 20:32, 10 October 2022 (UTC)


 * OK. The Journal was founded in 1858, but, as you say, the poem was published in 1860. -- Ssilvers (talk) 22:24, 10 October 2022 (UTC)