PA MAI ANA KA MAKANI

We love Hawaiian songs! Before Westerners arrived in the Hawaiian islands, Hawaiian folk music, like much other "pre-contact" music from Polynesia, featured many kinds of chantsongs, known as mele. Today Hawaii is rich in these traditional chants, as well as home to a delightful body of beautiful folk songs, many of which cross borders between spiritual music, with much praise of nature and the islands, and contemporary Polynesian folk music. Let’s enjoy a modern-ish version of “Pa Mai Kana a Makani,” a Hawaiian standard composed by Lydia Nawahine Kekuewa about fond memories of the homeland. Here are the original lyrics.