Welcome to travels with Todd

As has been the case for all my recent travel series, the category is filled with musical references and, while I won’t detail every quote or allusion, I will disclose the main song references and the theme that connects them to the category and to each other. In this instance, the post title identifies the song and the nonparenthetical section headers draw from the song’s lyrics. Additionally, with one or two exceptions, all of the songs have ties to islands, travel, or surfing, and often to Hawaii as well.

NOTE: It you are using the Text to Speech feature, you need to pause its reading to prevent it from continuing to process the text over any music video you want to watch or listen to. Once paused, you will need to manually restart the TTS.

Somewhere, beyond the sea

The song for the first post is, of course, Beyond the Sea and the post’s title is the song’s opening line. It seemed an  appropriate way to connect Aotearoa and Hawai’i. The section headers don’t appear in the same sequence as they do in the song but, if you listen, you’ll hear the nonparenthetical section headers. Charles Trenét and Jack Lawrence share the songwriting credit.

Bobby Darin probably recorded the most famous version so let’s go with that one.

On an island in the sun

There are lots of songs about sun and islands but many of them seem more closely tied to the Caribbean than to the Pacific. I’m not sure I’d label Weezer’s Island in The Sun as specifically Pacific but it felt closer than some of the other choices I considered and their official music video made me more comfortable with my choice. The lone songwriting credit goes to Rivers Cuomo.

You and me Sunday driving 

This one seed like a bit of a no-brainer to me. It was Sunday. I was driving. You were figuratively riding with me. The song is Two of Us. It’s credited to Lennon and McCartney but was almost certainly Paul’s competition. Here are The Beatles.

This post notes “a bit of a twist in the headers.” The twist isn’t the Poipu platter / pupu platter pun but the header that follows it that’s intended to evoke the theme from the seventies television sitcom Good Times because, of course, I had dinner at Rob’s Good Times Grill.

That island in the sun

A few sentences ago I wrote that there are lots of songs about islands and sun. This is another. Its title, Island in the Sun, is the same as the Weezer song. This time, it’s the first section header that pulls in the first line of lyrics and the song was on the Ringo Starr album Postcards From Paradise and Hawaii certainly fits that bill for many. The songwriting credits are kind of crazy – Composer Lyricist: Richard Starkey & The All Starrs Composer Lyricist: Richard Page Composer Lyricist: Gregg Rolie Composer Lyricist: Todd Rundgren Composer Lyricist: Steve Lukather Composer Lyricist: Warren Ham Composer Lyricist: Greg Bissonette. Here’s the other living Beatle singing it.

 

Admittedly, it has a bit of a Caribbean feel in its rhythm and instrumentation but doesn’t go nearly as far down that path as this one by Harry Belafonte that he cowrote with Irving Louis Burgie.

Are the stars out tonight

Okay. This one isn’t an island song in any way but since the post is principally about the sunset and stargazing tour at Haleakala, I saw no need to jam some island or surfing song into that box. Al Dubin and Harry Warren share the writing credits and I have strong childhood memories of this Solid Gold Soul performance by The Flamingos.

Goin’ places that I’ve never been

This post’s song is a travel song not an island song and not a Hawaii song. For those who don’t immediately recognize the lyric source that provides the post title, the answer is in the post’s first sentence – On the Road Again. Willie Nelson composed it and I’m going to provide the opportunity for you to hear him sing it.

I got sixty four point four miles to go

Until I started writing these posts, I didn’t know this song existed. Searching for songs isn’t unusual as I create these entries. I have a relatively deep knowledge reservoir with respect to popular music but sometimes, in much the same way as I might consult a thesaurus to hook a word I’m having difficulty fishing out of the lake of my vocabulary, I need to drop a line into a resource other than my memory catch a song I don’t want to throw back into the swirling water. I don’t remember what title I might have been trawling for when I happened on a song called Road to Hana. Performed by Iam Tongi, he shares co-writing credit with Johnny Reid and Gramps Morgan. There’s no better song reference about driving the Hana Highway than a song called Road to Hana.

And maybe it’s the time of year

I’m not certain what drew me to tying this post to the Joni Mitchell composition Woodstock. Perhaps it was the setting outside my room at the B and B where I stayed in Volcano Village. Perhaps it was the fact that essentially all of my activities there were centered on Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Perhaps it was some residual regret at not having used a song that has the lyric,

“And we’ve got to get ourselves

Back to the garden”

when I was on the Garden Island of Kauai. It could have been all of that. Or none of it. Here’s the slightly electrified cover by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young with the iconic opening guitar riff that Young said was a mistake that happened because he started playing before the rest of the band.

Dreams come true in Blue Hawaii

You couldn’t have thought I’d get through a series of posts about Hawaii and not have at least one song by Elvis Presley. The only greater sin of omission would be leaving him out of posts about Las Vegas. Somehow this song by Ralph Rainger with lyrics by Leo Robin seemed to be an ironic fit because I’d come to the Big Island hoping to see lava and the island was giving me none of that. I’ll let the King take it from here.

Catch a wave and you’re on top of the world

This one should be another one that’s obvious. Although they’re haole and mainlanders, I think it would be not merely inappropriate but bordering on unholy to leave The Beach Boys off any sand and surf themed song list. Of course with so Eddie Aikau being the focus of much of this post, what better post to bring in a Beach Boys surfing song. Brian Wilson and Mike Love get the writing credits for Catch a Wave.

Oahu – Pearl Harbor and the start of the K & P tour

Simply put, I thought spending time at Pearl Harbor was a serious enough endeavor that I let musical frivolity evaporate. There is no song for this one.

Gee it’s great to be in that 50th State

The morning at Kualoa Ranch and its ties to the movie and television industry meant I could return to the musical theme and progression. You might recall from the post about my time on Kualoa Ranch that one of the movies filmed there was Paradise Hawaiian Style. That made this a no brainer. And, it has the bonus of being Elvis again. Three writers share the credit and they are Bill Giant, Bernie Baum, and Florence Kaye. Ladies and gentlemen. once again, Elvis Presley.

 

On the Island we do it Island Style

This post is a bit different from the others because the post’s title is from the the song Island Style composed and performed by John Cruz. It’sa song that his website says, “brings the warm Aloha to you wherever you may be in this world.” This has a certain ring of personal truth since the Hawaiian native wrote the song when he was in New York.

However, what makes this post different is that the first section header has another song as its source. I knew neither of these songs before beginning this series and I certainly found the song He ‘Ono through a serendipitous accident. Give the food centric focus this day had, I felt compelled to include the song by Bina Mossman and Troy Fernandez. It’s performed by the Ka’au Crater Boys.

Santa in a red canoe

This is another song that’s new to me. It probably popped up when my search term was something along the lines of “songs about Christmas in Hawaii.” But it was Christmas Eve, I was going to spend the evening the K & P’s ‘ohana and the day ended with a gift exchange. (I actually did have two small gifts that I brought from New Aotearoa but nothing to match what I received.) Besides how else would Santa arrive in Hawaii besides a red canoe. This is the Surfers performing the song Here Comes Santa in a Red Canoe by Kuana Torres Kahele.

On a bright Hawaiian Christmas day

This is my Christmas Day post and I had to dig deeply into the memory banks to dredge up this song that my mom might have called a “moldy oldie.” It was written in 1949 by Robert Alexander Anderson. Anderson was born in Hawaii and composed songs in a style called hapa haole or half-white music. This musical genre features a Hawaiian tune, styling, and/or subject matter but has lyrics that are mostly or entirely in English. This isn’t meant to be pejorative in any way. Anderson composed nearly 200 songs and, in 1998, was posthumously inducted into the Hawaiian Music Hall of Fame. Here it is performed by Bing Crosby with an assist from the Andrews Sisters.