Christmas Notes: “Mele kalikimaka”

From the book “Note di Natale” by Davide Pezzi (with a preface by Arturo Stàlteri) published by VoloLibero we are currently publishing some of the 95 songs covered by the author in the 300 pages of the volume; we tried to choose the least “predictable”.

We have seen Christmas always connected to snow, to cold, even when set in places, such as Palestine, which are not exactly famous for ski slopes and ski lifts. But if we think of a Hawaiian Christmas, things are very different: we would probably spend the holidays on a beach in Maui, eating Kailua Pig and Laulau after a nice swim, and wishing Mele Kalikimaka to our loved ones, perhaps opening presents under a palm tree. In traditional Hawaiian culture, this time of year is actually known as Makahiki season, which marks the beginning of the lunar year
Hawaiian. The Makahiki season begins with the rising of the constellation Makalii and is dedicated to the god of fertility, agriculture and peace, Lonoikamakahiki. With the colonization of Hawaii came new traditions, such as Christmas, which in many ways represents similar values ​​of abundance and peace. The phrase «Mele Kalikimaka» arose as a way to
translate Merry Christmas into the Hawaiian language, as we will see, and was popularized by Bing Crosby’s famous 1950 recording.

The first written appearance of the expression “Mele Kalikimaka” occurred over a century ago.

In 1904, the Hawaiian-language newspaper “Ka Nupepa Kuokoa” used this term in its headlines for the first time; published from 1861 to 1927, this newspaper sometimes translated English words into the Hawaiian language. And here we need to open a brief linguistic digression to understand how from Merry Christmas we got to Mele Kalikimaka. Because the Hawaiian language has a different phonological system than English, missing some sounds and not allowing consonants at the ends of syllables, it is not possible to render a pronunciation that is particularly close to Merry Christmas. In the Hawaiian language each consonant must be followed by a vowel, as in Japanese, furthermore the T, already silent in English, is removed, so Merry Christmas, with the replacement of .
C – not existing in Hawaiian – with K, the closest phonetic equivalent, becomes Mery Karisimasa. But that’s not all: three other letters do not exist in the Hawaiian alphabet: R, replaced by L (as in Chinese), Y, replaced by E, and S, whose closest phonetic equivalent is K. So with progressive substitutions we have: Merry Christmas → Mery Karisimasa
→ Kalisimasa Apples → Kalikimaka Apples.

In 1949 Robert Alex Anderson, born in Honolulu in 1894, worked at the Von Hamm-Young Corp., one of the most important Hawaiian commercial companies, but his true passion was music: although self-taught, and without ever having studied theory or harmony , in his life he composed over one hundred songs, many of which became classics in the archipelago. One day, just before Christmas, a stenographer in his office points out to him, knowing his passion for music, that there is no Hawaiian Christmas song. Usually existing hymns are taken and lyrics in the Hawaiian language are applied, but there is no original melody. “Well, that spurred me on straight away: I thought, ‘what a good idea!'” – said Anderson – “I thought about it, and within a few days this song came to mind, I wrote it down white, and since then
I haven’t stopped singing it.”

“Mele Kalikimaka” would therefore seem to be Anderson’s umpteenth island success, except that one day the composer
he plays, accompanied by a ukulele, to his friend Bing Crosby, a regular visitor to the renowned Hawaiian golf courses.

The great singer liked it so much that he included it in his famous 1950 album “Merry Christmas”, accompanied by the Andrew Sisters, making a fundamental contribution to the international fame of the song. Since then “Mele Kalikimaka” has been covered by many artists, including Jimmy Buffett, Bette Midler, KT Tunstall and Mina (the version at the end of the article is hers) and included in the soundtrack of various films: “Catch Me If You Can” , “LA Confidential” and “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation!”. Anderson’s daughter, Pam, said the family still receives every .
year of royalties from around the world for the only Christmas song about the sun shining all day and palm trees swaying.