The 50 States: Hawaii
Next up on our tour is sweet sweet Hawaii. Hawaii, you thief of hearts. You are the volcanic topping on a paradise sundae, the ultimate honeymoon destination for crusteceans, coral, and the jet setting japanese. You have a language that is a completely mystery to me, and a joyous mystery at that -- a conundrum of beautiful consonants and diabolical punctuation. I bet you are warm right now, and I bet since it's the ides of March that many of my millions of readers are headed for your basaltic embrace -- to put their feet onto your warm sand and thaw their bones of the cold and misery that is a midwest winter.
Hawaii, you were scooped up in 1959 by the good ole' US of A. You give us all pineapples, and you're the only US state to grow coffee. Honolulu is geographically the largest city in the world, and hawaii overall is wider than any other state including AK and TX. You've given us such things as Hawaiian Standard Time, worlds largest wind generator, macadamia nuts, the only royale palace in the United States, and the worlds biggest telescope.
We love you, Hawaii. You have LOADS of good songs about you, here's a handful.
- hellogoodbye - Two Weeks in Hawaii
- The Gabby Pahinui Hawaiian Band - Aloha Ka Manini
- Cringer - A Song About Hawaii
- The Strokes - Hawaii
- Jacknife Lee - Aloha Satellite Special
- Screeching Weasel - This Ain't Hawaii
- Luke Vibert and BJ Cole - Fly Hawaii
- Tom McRae - Walking to Hawaii
- Elephant Micah - Hawaii and the Derby Day
- Raymond Scott Quintette - Hypnotist in Hawaii
- Robert Crumb and the Cheap Suit Serenaders - Hano Hano Hawaii
- Brian Wilson - In Blue Hawaii
- The Rivieras - Let's Go To Hawaii
- Jazztronik - To You Sweetheart, Aloha
- The Ventures - Hawaii 5-0
- Sammy Davis Jr. - Hawaii 5-0
- Beach Boys - Hawaii
- Bing Crosby - Blue Hawaii
- Demonics - Aloha Oe
- Elvis Presley - Aloha Oe
- Frank Delima - Hawaii Sleeps Tonight
- Gus Backus - Honolulu Baby
- Hanapi Trio - Sweet Hailua Lady
- Honolulu Mountain Daffodils - Aloha Sayonara
- Ray Charles - Blue Hawaii
- Red Elvises - Hawaii
- Nitty Gritty Dirt Band - Sailin' to Hawaii
- The Huntingtons - Aloha, It's You
- The Royal Tahitians - I'll See You in Hawaii
- Hawaii Samurai - Pacific Darkside
- Radio Birdman - Aloha Steve and Danno
- The Kilma Hawaiians - De Roos Van Honolulu (German hawaiian music.... wtf?)
- Brenda Weiler and Kid Dakota - Honolulu, Minnesota
- The Cramps - Aloha from Hell
- Raymond Kane & Yuki Yamauchi - Lani Ha'aha'a
- The Breeders - No Aloha
- Leonard kwan - New 'opihi Moemoe #3
- Reverend Horton Heat - I Can't Surf
- Weezer - Surf Wax America
- Jan and Dean - Honolulu Lulu
- Elvis Jackson - Hawaii Club
- Sondre Lerche - Honolulu (just leaked from his new album)
- Young Canadians - Hawaii
Also kiddies, thanks for all the comments on the Georgia post. Next up is Idaho -- so if you think there is some songs about Idaho that I'll overlook (and yes... I'm aware of built to spill) then feel free to drop it in the comments below.
posted by Robert @ 11:01 AM
11 Comments:
For further listening, I recommend the song Oahu by Menomena.
Damn - I forgot to mention "Waikiki Beach Refugees" by The Flys.
de kilma hawaians are dutch actually, so please don't call them germans...
fn
A Hawaii post and nothing by IZ?
lol Just wanted to post this comment about the confusion between german and dutch but saw that this other anonymous was there before me.....The languages are alike its ture..But the insult is tremendous...if you call dutch german..Sensitive issue...
andrea
The nitty gritty dirt band's file is not there... replicated by the next one it seems...
The Kilima Hawaiians are indeed a "dutch"group and the song was actually recorded in 1941! "Hawaiian"-music was music that was allowed by the German invaders (as long as it was sung in Dutch), "American"-jazz music wasn't allowed! The guitar player, a active member of the Dutch resistance, had to flee his country in 1944, joined the American army & got wounded 4 times!
So, maybe you can understand the snappy comment made by anonymous! Forgive him or her, we Dutch people are still a bit sensitive to mistakes like this
(want to sing-a-long? here are the lyrics...http://www.lyricsvault.net/songs/20909.html)
anyway, thanks for this otherwise fantastic post!
Fabulous... haven't checked all of these out yet, but glad to see you posted two of my favorites, Gabby Pahinui (one of the most beautiful Hawaiian songs ever, featuring Ry Cooder on slide) and Radio Birdman: "Book him, Danno... murder one." Nice work!
When you are riding with the Young Canadians you are riding with the best. One day Canada, too, will have a tropical province...we're waiting to see what is left of the tropical world after World War IV is over.
Until then we have Barnston Island.
Thank you so much for this. I think I have a rare disease, and the only cure for it is this blog.
The Carpenters did a song called "Honolulu City Lights." I hate the band but the song's worth a mention.
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