Far Above Cayuga's Waters
"Far Above Cayuga's Waters" is
History
This song is one of the better-known alma maters in the United States. It is the only alma mater song included in Ronald Herder's 500 Best-Loved Song Lyrics.[1] In a novel, Betty Smith called it "the saddest and oldest of all college songs".[2] Edward Abbey, in One Life at a Time, Please, mentions a campfire sing in which he contributed "the first line of the only Ivy League song that occurred to me: 'Far above Cayuga's waters . . .'".[3]
The tune has been used since by dozens of
Other colleges and universities that have used the same tune include
; The Depot Christian School in Greenville, Texas; and Camp Becket in the Berkshires.The song traditionally concludes campus performances by the Cornell University Chorus and Cornell University Glee Club. It is also heard between the second and third periods of men's ice hockey games, halftime or the end of the third quarter of football games, and half time of other Cornell athletic contests attended by the Cornell Big Red Pep Band. A rendition of the tune is also used to conclude all of the school's daily afternoon chime concerts, whose evening performances traditionally ended with the "Evening Song"; the morning concert begins with the "Jennie McGraw Rag" but has no traditional finale.
The originating melody used was the song "Annie Lisle", composed by; H S Thompson in 1857,[5][6] the same melody was used as a church hymn and appears as; "There's a book I love to read" in the book "Golden bells, or hymns for our children" London, 1899.
Lyrics
The first two verses are the best known and are usually the only verses sung. The song, however, has six verses and no refrains. However, in common practice, only the first two verses are sung, and they share the lines "Lift the chorus, speed it onward, loud her praises tell; / Hail to thee our Alma Mater! Hail, all hail, Cornell!" Due to this symmetry, whenever only the first two verses are printed or sung, it is customary to consider lines 1–2 and 5–6 as being verses 1 and 2, respectively, and lines 3–4 and 7–8 as being a single repeated refrain:[7]
- Verse one
- Far above Cayuga's waters,
- With its waves of blue,
- Stands our noble Alma Mater,
- Glorious to view.
- Refrain
- Lift the chorus, speed it onward,
- Loud her praises tell;
- Hail to thee, our Alma Mater!
- Hail, all hail, Cornell!
- Verse two
- Far above the busy humming
- Of the bustling town,
- Reared against the arch of heaven,
- Looks she proudly down.
Recordings
The oldest known recording of the song is the Cornell University Glee Club's recording made on January 2, 1914, at the Columbia Phonograph Company on 38th Street in New York City. The record was distributed later that year as a 10-inch 78 RPM recording. The song "Cornell" was recorded on the other side.[8]
The song has been recorded many times since by Cornell's various vocal and instrumental ensembles.
In popular culture
The song was heard in the 1953 film Titanic, in which it is sung by Robert Wagner and Purdue University students.
The song was in Season 2, Episode 8 of Marvel's Agent Carter.
The song was also sung by the a cappella group Here Comes Treble in
The tune, with different lyrics, is used in the parting song for the Kellerman Resort in the 1987 film Dirty Dancing.
See also
References
- ISBN 978-0-486-29725-5. Retrieved 18 March 2010.
- ISBN 978-0-06-095686-8. Retrieved 18 March 2010.
- ISBN 978-0-8050-0603-2. Retrieved 18 March 2010.
- ^ "About US".
- OCLC 5543365200. Retrieved 26 March 2023.
- ^ Kane, Martin (11 October 1954). "The Band Plays On". Sports Illustrated. Vol. 1, no. 9. p. 39. Retrieved 26 March 2023.
- ^ "Cornell Songs". Cornell University Glee Club. Archived from the original on 20 November 2008. Retrieved 6 April 2010.
- ^ Cornell Daily Sun, Columbia Records by the Glee Club, Volume XXXIV, Issue 77, 5 January 1914, Page 1
