The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #123277 Message #2713082
Posted By: Genie
31-Aug-09 - 02:11 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Add: Ke Kali Nei Au (Waiting For Thee)
Subject: Ke Kali Nei Au (Waiting For Thee) - Hawaiian Weddi
I know it was written by King for his 1926 operetta, but what I thought I had read somewhere, a few years back, was that the 1926 song "Ke Kali Nei Au" either had a somewhat different tune/format from the later US pop song "Hawaiian Wedding Song" based on King's song, or that King's own song was derived from a tradtional Hawaiian song.
My memory for the details is obviously fuzzy, but the fact that King composed the songs for his operetta does not preclude his having borrowed from folk music. It's been done before, many times. I probably got my earlier information from a book of sheet music, before I was doing much internet searching. Maybe I can find the reference again.
As for "Hawaiian Wedding Song" being a parody, I wouldn't call it that. It's just different lyrics set to a tune, as opposed to a "singable translation." Though, unlike lyrics like "It's Now Or Never" (Elvis) being set to the tune of "O Sole Mio," the "Hawaiian Wedding Song" lyrics do convey sentiments the same as or similiar to much of the lyric of Ke Kali Nei Au ("this is the moment I've waited for," "now that we are one," "all my love I vow, dear," etc.) It's not a totally unrelated lyric set to the same tune, much less a humorous takeoff.
I do sing Ke Kali Nei Au and I like it more than the Hawaiian wedding song, but the audiences I use it for are more familiar with the latter and want to sing along to the English lyrics.
I am wondering if anyone has ever written a "singable English translation" of Charles E King's lyrics.