The Song

This song is much more popular for this version of the piece but I’ve chosen the acapella version that was performed last year by the Knightingales and Acafellas. One main component of the piece was accompaniment by voice, seemingly present mostly from the male voice. The male voice was meant to represent and exemplify the strumming of the ukulele, heard in the version by Israel Kamakawiwo’ole. The original version of the song is from “The wizard of Oz” but a simple google search of the song now yields Kamakawiwo’ole’s version as the primary result. He added ornamentation and runs where they weren’t originally, along with the inclusion of the ukulele. Those two elements made the piece his own and the acapella version shared here. Both versions of this song hold Kamakawiwo’ole’s vision I believe, and make good examples of how he transformed this 1939 piece into one cemented as a window into ‘Hawaiian’ music.