As unfamiliar lyrics rang out over the water, smiling hula dancers swished to and fro, laughing as they imitated swimming fishes and eating two-finger poi with their nimble fingers.
[5] He faced two challenges: Revising the melody to avoid conflicts with "Hackensack" without altering Cogswell's words, as he was "inspired by the lyrics" and their "nostalgic appeal",[5] and crafting the song into a hit: He set to work revising the music, removing the phrases which to him seemed unoriginal, putting in the touches which... make all the difference between a pretty good song and a song-hit.
'"[5]In naming "My Little Grass Shack" one of the "50 Greatest Songs of Hawaii", as chosen by a panel of experts, Honolulu magazine singled out Noble's contribution: "This light-hearted ditty exemplifies composer and band-leader Johnny Noble's talent at creating hapa haole tunes tailor-made for tourists' tastes, but palatable for locals as well.
In "Notes on Hawaiian Music", Noble said, "The first two thousand copies sold locally went like hot cakes—the demand for the song was too great.
[5] Noble sent the sheet music to bandleader Ted Fio Rito at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles where he was regularly playing the Cocoanut Grove radio remote (a nationwide broadcast of live big band ballroom concerts).
[6] Fio Rito had been doing radio remotes since 1924 when he was co-leader of a band with Dan Russo (coincidentally, a co-writer of "Back in Hackensack, New Jersey").
That was not, however, the earliest recording, made for Victor on September 14, 1933, in New York City by the Noelani Hawaiian Orchestra under the title "My Little Grass Shack (Kealakekua)".
[10] Another hapa haole version pre-dated Fio Rito, recorded for Brunswick on November 11, 1933, by future Hawaiian Music Hall of Fame honoree and lap-steel guitar master Sol Hoʻopiʻi and His Novelty Quartet.
[1] "My Little Grass Shack" is a hapa haole song, "a hybrid genre that mixed American jazz and dance rhythms (swing and foxtrot), Hawaiian instrumentation (such as the steel guitar and ukulele), and lyrics in both English and Hawaiian"[12] (hapa haole means "half foreign" and is also used in a literal sense to mean "multiracial").
It was written, recorded, and reached the top of the charts nearly two decades after the start of the hapa haole fad, the Hawaiian music craze, which began with the popularity of a 1912 Broadway musical, The Bird of Paradise, and exploded in earnest at the Hawaiian Pavilion at San Francisco's Panama–Pacific International Exposition in 1915.
Music was a significant element in Hawaiian culture, helping to attract visitors: Colorful community events were staged, usually involving flowers and parades.
Listeners grew up with the sounds of Hawaii from that popular show and developed lifelong desires to see and hear the real thing.
[17] The advent of mass production assembly lines contributed as well by increasing supplies and reducing prices of steel guitars and ukuleles.
"Everyone wanted to head to Hawaii, take up life in a grass shack, and hang out with their kane and wahine compatriots on the beach at Honaunau," says The Kona Historical Society.
The line, "Where the Humuhumunukunukuapua'a go swimming by," refers to the reef triggerfish, Hawaii's state fish, by its long Hawaiian name.
There is one full line in Hawaiian, "Komo mai no kāua i ka hale welakahao," which literally translates to, "Come into our house while the iron's hot."
Dolly Parton, in her televised live performance of the song in 1987, shouts out after the line is sung that it means, "Come to my house, we're gonna party!"
The song was so popular that soldiers stationed in Hawaii during World War II who were not allowed to write letters home instead sent photographs of themselves in front of the gift shop to let their families know where they were.
Most recordings begin with an instrumental introduction built upon the primary eight-bar 1-2-5-1 progression, or at least its last four bars, featuring the same melody that is later played behind the "Humuhumunukunukuapuaa" lyric.
A partial list of artists who have recorded versions include: "My Little Grass Shack" has been used frequently in movies, in two waves.
The second wave began in 1990, "My Little Grass Shack" becoming a popular movie soundtrack song, particularly for films set in Hawaii.
On television, "My Little Grass Shack" was sometimes sung by a cast member as part of the story, sometimes accompanying themselves on ukulele, and sometimes was performed in variety shows.
"My Little Grass Shack in Kealakekua, Hawaii" was originally written as a parody of the chorus of "Back in Hackensack, New Jersey", composed in 1924 by Dan A. Russo and Art L. Biner.