Aloha Oe: A Song History

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“Aloha ʻOe” was written by Liliʻuokalani as a love song, or mele hoʻoipoipo, while she was heir to the Hawaiian throne, and one study dates it to 1877 or 1878.[1] The Hawaiʻi State Archives catalog places its composition at Maunawili in 1878.[2] In the account given by the Washington Place historic site, she was touring Oʻahu when she watched a young couple part with affection; work on the song started at Maunawili during that trip, and it was finished afterward at Washington Place.[3] Her 1878 manuscript renders the title in English as “Farewell to thee.”[4]

Watercolor of a rocky river running through green banks toward the sea and a distant town

Constance Frederica Gordon-Cumming, Hilo, Banks of the Wailuku, Hawaii, watercolor over graphite, heightened with white gouache, November 18, 1879. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). Painted in Hawaiʻi in 1879 and shown for its setting; it has no connection to the song.

An arrangement by Henry Berger was published in Honolulu by J. H. Soper with an 1884 copyright.[5] The historian Adria Imada writes that the song was probably first performed in the United States in 1883, and she estimates that at least forty-six American editions appeared between 1884 and 1944.[1] Citing The Queen's Songbook, she adds that Liliʻuokalani seems to have borrowed four measures from Charles C. Converse's song “The Rock Beside the Sea.”[1] Converse's piece was published in Philadelphia by Lee & Walker in 1857.[6] J. Thomas Baldwin's 1887 march “Aloha oe (my love to you),” which uses the melody throughout, was issued to honor a Hawaiian royal visit to Boston.[4]

After a failed royalist attempt in 1895 to restore her to the throne, Liliʻuokalani was arrested, forced to abdicate, tried and convicted, and held for nearly eight months in an upstairs room of ʻIolani Palace.[7] A widely repeated story, which Imada calls apocryphal, holds that she wrote “Aloha ʻOe” in captivity, but Imada says she “did not compose ‘Aloha ʻOe’ during her house arrest, but only transcribed it.”[1] Liliʻuokalani later wrote that songs she wrote out in confinement, “Aloha ʻOe” among them, reached Chicago and were printed there.[4] Early recordings in the Discography of American Historical Recordings include Sousa's Band for Victor in 1911 and the Hawaiian Quintette for Victor in April 1913.[8] In 2025 the Library of Congress added the Hawaiian Quintette's 1913 single to the National Recording Registry.[9]

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Sources

  1. Adria L. Imada, American Indian Culture and Research Journal 37:2 (2013): "'Aloha ʻOe': Settler-Colonial Nostalgia and the Genealogy of a Love Song".
  2. Hawaiʻi State Archives Digital Collections: "Song Book, 1868-1895, Liliʻuokalani".
  3. Washington Place: "Queen's Music and Washington Place".
  4. Houghton Library, Harvard University: "Queen Liliʻuokalani's composition 'Aloha ʻOe' and American sheet music about Hawaiʻi".
  5. The Morgan Library & Museum: "Aloha oe! Aloha oe! : song and chorus / arr. by H. Berger".
  6. Lester S. Levy Sheet Music Collection, Johns Hopkins University: "The Rock Beside the Sea. A Romanza.".
  7. ʻIolani Palace: "Imprisonment Room".
  8. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Liliuokalani".
  9. Library of Congress: "Complete National Recording Registry Listing".