Name: Sarah Whitaker: Ka Manu
Channel: Traditional
Description: Free MP3 download. A bittersweet tale of forbidden love, beautifully sung and played in the traditional style.

Sarah Whitaker: Ka Manu

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Free download

A bittersweet tale of forbidden love, beautifully sung and played in the traditional style.

slack keyki hoalukanekwan

TaroPatch

Hawaiian slack key guitar (ki ho`alu) from members of TaroPatch.net

Original Hawaiian (ki hoalu) songs and arrangements from members of ...the online ohana (family) for anyone interested in learning to play this beautiful guitar style. (Slack key is traditional Hawaiian "back porch" music and has recently received more widespread exposure through George Winston's label.) The songs posted here are neither polished nor intended for commercial release; they are simply examples of slack key guitar played by regular people (both Hawaiian and haole) who love the style and want to share their learning experience with others. If you're not currently a member of , please feel free to visit us at ...we have a wealth of resources for anyone interested in playing (or just listening to) slack key guitar and a great bunch of people to make it feel like home.

Song Info

Genre

World • Traditional Hawaiian

Charts

Peak #37

Peak in subgenre #2

Author

Traditional

Rights

2004 Sarah Whitaker

Uploaded

October 03, 2004

Track Files

MP3

MP3 4.1 MB • 128 kbps • 0:00

Story behind the song

I started learning Hawaiian in spring 1997 and began playing guitar that same summer. The beauty of slack key is what inspired me to learn to play the guitar so I've never learned standard tuning.

This is one of my favorite old songs. I like the fact that it is a true story, and in the old style of slack key. I play this in the style of Auntie Alice Namakelua using some of her guitar "figures" for the accompaniment. Traditionally, I think, each verse would have been sung twice, although I don't do that here. Auntie Alice was one of the first greats among slack key players. When she was young she played frequently before Queen Lili`uokalani; that's how long ago and how good she was. Auntie Alice recorded this song in her 80s on her only solo album.

This song has a touching story that goes with it. It was written by a man about his own experience of being separated from his sweetheart. The lovers' families lived too far apart and so the families would not permit them to marry--there are typically Hawaiian poetic allusions to love, intimacy, and separation--so they had to part, "with great pain." The lyrics evidence the quality of composition in the way they make use of the technique of linkage, where the last word or sound of one verse is picked up at the start of the next. The postscript is that many years later Auntie Alice met this man, and he taught her the song. And neither he nor his sweetheart had ever married anyone else.

Tuning: G Wahine (DGDF#BD)

Lyrics

`Auhea wale `oe e ka manu
Ku`u hoa `alo leo o ka pö anu
 
Mea `ole ia anu a i ka mana`o
Ke ko`i`i koi mau a ka pu`uwai
 
Na wai no `oe e pakele aku
Ua like me ka liko a`o ka lehua
 
Ka maka o ka lehua ka mea aloha
Ka wehi holu mai ma ka hikina
 
E honi kaua e ke aloha
Ke noe mai nei ka pua lehua
 
Alia `oe a`e pülale mai
A hala o maile lau kapalili
 
He lili ka mana`o o ke kapena
Na`ale po`ipü a`o ka moana
 
Ua ana pono `ia ko`u mana`o
E ka lei hulu nani hulu melemele
 
He mele kaulana no Nihoa
Ua hui Kane`ohe me Pohoiki
 
Ha`ina `ia mai ana ka puana
Goodbye käua me ka `eha`eha