Talk:Aloha ʻOe

What year was this song written?
Aloha kākou! This article conflicts itself. The last sentence of the first paragraph states that this song was written in 1877. The first sentence of the second paragraph states that it was written in 1878.

I have researched this online and find both dates. Short of going down to Bishop Museum to take a look at the original document (the Hawaiian hall is still being remodeled), I think we should come to a consensus and say 1878 as mentioned at the Huapala.org website. This site is accurate in it's translations of mele 'o Hawai'i. Anyone disagree? Kanaka maoli i puuwai 04:15, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

The song Aloha Oe was written in 1825 by Alice Everett. Alice Everett was the shadow composer for Liliuokalani, Alice does have acknowledgement for the beloved Hawaiian song, "Ua Li-ke No A Li-ke," eventually to be recorded by famous country and western singer Marty Robbins as "Constancy", also recorded by others with names such as "My Hearts Choice", and "Sweet Constancy". As "Ua Li-ke No A Li-ke" was published in 1812 under Alice's name it could not be republished under Liliuokalani's name. Don't get me wrong, we do have Liliuokalani to credit for saving Alice's beautiful songs from oblivion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.199.125.229 (talk) 15:26, 14 July 2011 (UTC) Citations? references? none. It is easy to change names or take credit for a work, but the signature of Alice is inherently in the style of her compositions. This cannot be concealed. Compare for example the refrain from Aloha Oe to the refrain from "Ua Li-ke No A Li-ke". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.199.125.229 (talk) 15:35, 14 July 2011 (UTC) 76.173.11.168 (talk) 23:39, 12 August 2016 (UTC)Huapala.org is not always correct. As to Ua Like No A Like being published in 1812? Think about it. The missionaries with their diatonic music scale did not arrive in the islands until 1820. Up until that time it was drums and rattles to accompany vocal chanting. If Alice Everett was a contemporary of Lili`uokalani (who was born in 1838) how could she write the song in 1812? I would suggest a typo for the publishing of that song "Ua Like No A Like" to be more likely late 1800's, when #1 = music could actually be PUBLISHED of Hawaiian songs and #2 = there exists a copy of Bergstrom's "Favorite Hawaiian Songs" where both "Aloha Oe" and "Ua Like No A Like" are notated. This book was copyrighted in 1902.

In defense of Aloha Oe being written by Liliuokalani, there exists a small note in the Queen's handwriting where she penned at least the words to the song in the carriage on the day she wrote the song. Some of her companions suggested the melody came from a Prussian hymn, and that may well be. There are many songs that "sound somewhat like" a well known composition, but that doesn't mean that the original songwriter "wrote" the similar tune. I don't believe Alice Everett ghost or shadow-wrote this song in 1812. It is difficult to issue citations for events that have left no tangible evidence, but the technology and tone of the time frame absolutely condradicts any Hawaiian song with a diatonic scale being written prior to 1820, and the composer would have to be a quick study to get musical composition theory down before 1835.76.173.11.168 (talk) 23:39, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Origin of the Song
Who else thinks the section on the Croatian song is a bit out of proportion to the rest of the song? I am entirely in favor of mentioning the song, and putting the song info in a separate page - but what is the purpose of having the full Croatian lyrics of a song in THIS page when the Hawaiian lyrics are not there?

I suggest moving the content relating to Sidi Mara to their own page, and leaving the paragraph indicating likely provenance. --mililani


 * Without any sources, it appears to be original research and I'm deleting it accordingly. Angr 17:56, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Song in the Hawaiian Language
I think it would be prudent to include the song in its original (and infinitely more famous) Hawaiian language form. I'm sort of new to anything extensive (I've only really done text edits). How would I go about doing something like this? Valley2city 20:57, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Did I not read somewhere I Think in Michener that someone on the big Island actually composed the song, and it was assumed by the Queen? I know Michener is fiction but he does base his stories on history. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.251.102.206 (talk) 23:01, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Hawaiian Music
The article as written suggests that the the Hawaiian natives had no music of their own prior to the arrival of Berger. I find that hard to believe. Could the poster clarify? Jackbox1971 04:26, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
 * It is, of course, preposterous. I've removed it as completely unsourced original research, if not a simple hoax. —Angr 11:53, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Use in popular culture
This song has been sung or performed in TV and movies before. The most easily remembered occurance of this is in the first Lilo and Stitch film. If you know of any others, we may have enough to start a new section of the article. -dogman15 04:45, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Lilo and Stitch is certainly not the first appearance of this in animated form, if this is the song featured in many classic Warner Brothers cartoons that I think it is. Never completely, of course, but as an example Bugs Bunny sings the line "Aloha Oe, Farewell to thee..." as he lowers himself into the magician's hat in "Case of the Missing Hare". Another example of that song is the Porky Pig Cartoon "Notes to You". (which also featured one of the longest running themes in Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies, The Umbrella Man: "Any umberellas, any umberellas to mend today, todoodle lumma lummma toodle lumma lumma toodle-eay...") That tune and "I'm just wild about Harry" are also missing wikipedia articles or even slight mention under Looney Tunes as running gag themes. (maybe one of you old music njerds with free time could fix that, hint hint)

Copyvio?
Could someone please double-check this? The text appears to copy the text of the referred website. rpyle731talk 06:02, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Yep. Anonymous user  copied the source attributed to J. Wong.  Good catch. I'll revert to an earlier version. &mdash;Viriditas | Talk 09:47, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Requested move
I would like to move this page to Aloha ʻOe, where a redirect to this page is already in place. The ‘okina used in this article's title is not a proper ‘okina, but is instead a tick mark (`). I'm unsure if consensus has been reached on ‘okina style at Talk:Hawaii, WP:WikiProject Hawaii/Manual of Style, or wherever discussion was taking place. However, though I prefer ‘ aesthetically, I realize that is a true okina.

Anyhow, I would have moved this page myself, but I cannot as there are two edits in the history of Aloha ʻOe. If no one objects to this request, I'll go ahead and make a request at WP:RM soon.

I guess the main point behind this request is that I'm unsure what okina style was accepted. &mdash;Kal (talk) 10:36, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Move back to the standard apostrophe?

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: Not moved. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 01:41, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

Aloha ʻOe → Aloha 'Oe

I was about to move the article from Aloha ʻOe to Aloha 'Oe, using the standard apostrophe rather than an ʻokina. Having read this Talk section and the ʻOkina article, I am questioning whether this would be an appropriate move. Always good to check the Talk pages first, and ask if in doubt. Christopher, Sheridan, OR (talk) 21:21, 23 August 2020 (UTC) —Relisting. —usernamekiran (talk) 23:24, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I've converted the help me into a move request, which will garner outside opinions from other editors. Primefac (talk) 21:31, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you. As I said, I wasn't sure whether converting ʻ to ' would be appropriate in this case.
 * Christopher, Sheridan, OR (talk) 22:07, 23 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Oppose: The ʻokina has been acceptable on Wikipedia for quite awhile. The article is on the most popular Hawaiian language song in the world so it should reflect the nuance of the language. KAVEBEAR (talk) 13:52, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Do you have a more technical reason? I'm just looking for a more definitive answer. It's mostly the URL in the address bar that I'm interested in; I think there's a way to keep the article title as it appears now using the ʻokina, but have the web address use the standard apostrophe instead. I believe that would be ideal, but your insight is appreciated; thank you.
 * Christopher, Sheridan, OR (talk) 02:12, 27 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Oppose: The article should reflect the correct usage of the Hawaiian language, and as that's with an ʻokina then it should remain with one. This also seems to be consistent across other articles with topics that have an ʻokina in their name, such as the various specific articles about the ʻOʻo. I also don't think the URL is much of a concern, many articles have special characters in their title without worrying about the URL, and some browsers (such as firefox) support the display of these characters in the URL anyway. Turnagra (talk) 22:20, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
 * What you're saying in short, is don't worry about a non-standard apostrophe in the browser address bar as part of the URL.
 * Christopher, Sheridan, OR (talk) 00:08, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm saying a bit more than that, but I don't think that the URL is worthy of any consideration, no. The sole question should be what the correct title should be, and that title would be with an ʻokina and not an apostrophe. Turnagra (talk) 02:10, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Actually, the sole question was posed by myself, with the intent focusing on a non-standard variant of an ascii character in the URL. The article title is incidental to the question. Moving the article would obviously change both, but if there is a way to only change how the address bar is displayed and not the article title, then that is the sole intent of my question—whether doing so would be appropriate.
 * Christopher, Sheridan, OR (talk) 03:44, 29 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Question: To the next person who votes in opposition, would this also be your considered opinion, to not worry about a non-standard apostrophe in the browser address bar as part of the URL? Christopher, Sheridan, OR (talk) 00:09, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia does not currently take pretty/legible URLs into consideration when choosing a title, and it isn't possible to have the URL different from the title. A straight apostrophe also gives an "ugly" URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloha_%27Oe. These characters are however displayed prettified in browsers such as Chrome. – Thjarkur (talk) 18:25, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Perhaps I'm confusing special capitalization encodings for article titles (referenced discussion here). In any case, I would agree that %27 doesn't look any better, though neither would %26%23699%3B.
 * This sounds like a consensus to me—Result: not move—and will request closing this discussion on Monday unless anyone has something substantial to add. Thank you everyone for clarifying how an & appears in the URL. Christopher, Sheridan, OR (talk) 21:24, 29 August 2020 (UTC)


 * The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Redirects for incorrect titles?
I for one, and a cursory Google search seems to confirm that I wasn't the only one, thought for the longest time this was "Alo Hawaii". A mondegreen, for sure, but it's harmless to redirect anyone who might be searching for that. 181.115.9.103 (talk) 22:59, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
 * ✅ – Thjarkur (talk) 18:26, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Use to symbolise Hawaii's loss of independence?
I've seen around the internet that this song, while perhaps not composed for this purpose, was hugely important in symbolising Hawaii's loss of its independence as the US stepped up their efforts to colonise and ultimately take control of it. Is this true? And if so, perhaps someone who knows more about it than me should write about it in this article. Or even if not true, perhaps the misconception should be written about. --Muzer (talk) 22:22, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Tomago
Where does "tomago" come from? What's the original source?

2600:1700:4640:43D0:8124:6353:1EEA:E081 (talk) 01:24, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Use of tune in hymnwriting
It's worth noting that since the early 1900s the tune ALOHA 'OE (sorry for the ordinary apostrophe; hymnals often just give ALOHA OE) has been used as the tune for a number of Christian hymns. Sometimes (as on the tune authority page in the Hymnary.org database Queen Lili'uokalani is credited as the composer; in other cases (as with this arrangement by Southern Baptist hymnal editor B. B. McKinney it is said to be an anonymous Hawaiian folk song. At least twelve different hymns have been written or set to the tune in several languages, the most frequently reprinted being Thoro Harris's He's coming soon and the aforementioned "He lives on High by B. B. McKinney. Queen Liliuokalani did write hymns, herself, but as far as I know never used this tune for one. --Haruo (talk) 01:52, 19 February 2023 (UTC)