From the Land of the Sky Blue Water

"From the Land of the Sky-Blue Water" is a popular song published in 1909. Charles Wakefield Cadman composed the music based on an Omaha love song collected by Alice C. Fletcher. "Sky-blue water" or "clear blue water" is one possible translation of "Mnisota," the name for the Minnesota River in the Dakota language. Nelle Richmond Eberhart wrote the poem that goes with the music:

From the Land of Sky-blue Water,They brought a captive maid,And her eyes they are lit with lightnings,Her heart is not afraid!But I steal to her lodge at dawning,I woo her with my flute;She is sick for the Sky-blue Water,The captive maid is mute.

An arrangement of the song for harp and flute is performed by Harpo Marx in the 1940 Marx Bros. film, Go West. A snatch is sung by Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams in Scene Two while she is in the bathroom. The first line, "From the Land of Sky-blue Water", is sung by the Three Stooges in the film "The Three Stooges In Orbit", at about the three quarter point in the film, right before they launch into space for the first time.