Mele Kalikimaka! The Christmas Season is upon us and that means only one thing: It’s time to grab our ukuleles and start learning -or at least practicing- the Christmas songs that we’re gonna play to our loved ones. And what better song to start this ukulele adventure than with Mele Kalikimaka, the so called “most popular Hawaiian Christmas song of all time”?
“Mele Kalikimaka is the Hawaiian way to say Merry Christmas to you” is the famous line of this Christmas song that was written back in 1949 by the American composer Robert Alexander Anderson, and one year later (1950) recorded by the famous actor and singer, Bing Crosby, next to the Andrews Sisters in the backing vocals.
Back in 1949 people always sang the Christmas carols as usual without the Hawaiian touch, until one day, one of Anderson’s stenographers, in the middle of the Christmas season, came up to a question that changed the American’s Christmas song’s history: “Mr. Anderson, how come there’s no Hawaiian Christmas songs?”
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I know… crazy! Huh? But there were no Hawaiian Christmas songs to sing back in the day! When Anderson heard that question, he immediately started thinking of a way to create a Christmas song that could mix the Christmas spirit with the Hawaiian culture. And that’s how Mele Kalikimaka was born:
“Well, I’ll tell you, a stenographer in our office, this was just before Christmas, and we are all leaving (5 o’clock), and she was next to me and she said, ‘Mr. Anderson, how come there’s no Hawaiian Christmas songs?’. She said, “they take all the hymns and they put Hawaiian words to the hymns, but there’s no original melody’. Well, that spurred me right away – I thought, ‘what a good idea!’ I thought this over, and over a period of a few days this came into my head, put it down on paper, and I’ve been singing it ever since”, explained Alex Anderson in an interview recorded on 1994.
But… is Mele Kalikimaka really the Hawaiian way to say Merry Christmas? According to a phonetic study published on JSTOR Daily, the phrase “Mele Kalikimaka seems to be an adaption from the “Merry Christmas” English words to the Hawaiian language. The study affirms that the sounds of the letters between English and Hawaiian allowed people to, somehow, translate “Merry Christmas” to the local language:
“The ‘L’ sound in Hawaiian is closest to the ‘R’ sound in “Merry Christmas,” so ‘MERRY’ becomes ‘MELE’”, explains the JSTOR Daily. Same thing happens with the word “CHRISTMAS”: “The Hawaiian language has just 8 consonants, with no equivalents to ‘S’ or ‘T’, and in this case, the ‘K’ sound of “KALIKIMAKA” is replacing the ‘S’ sound in ‘CHRISTMAS’”.
Ok! Enough explanations! Now it’s time to learn and play this awesome song!
How To Play Mele Kalikimaka on your Ukulele
To play Mele Kalikimaka on your ukulele you’ll only need 8 chords: F – Abdim – C7 – F7 – Bb – D7 – G7 – Am7b5. Don’t worry, I’m gonna show you the chord diagrams and the rhythm in the image below so you can memorize it and play it #LikeAPro. Make sure to tag us on social media if you record a video of this song! 🙂 We’d like to see your progress combined with the Christmas spirit!
Wait, what’s that rhythm? How does it sound? DOn’t worry, I got you covered! Terry Carter will teach you exactly how to play this “chuck-up-chuck-up” rhythm and how to sing the Mele Kalikimaka song using that rhythm! Are you ready?
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Before I show you the lyrics… Did you know that Mele Kalikimaka has been covered by many (many, many!) artists over the years? The song has been used in covers, movies and events in such proportion that today, 72 years after its release, it still brings a lot of revenue for Anderson’s family.
Now, here are the Lyrics!
Mele Kalikimaka is the thing to say
On a bright Hawian Christmas Day
That’s the island greeting that we send to you
From the land where palm trees sway
Here we know that Christmas
Will be green and bright
The sun to shine by day
And all the stars at night
Mele Kalikimaka is Hawaii’s way
To say Merry Christmas to you
Mele Kalikimaka is the thing to say
On a bright Hawian Christmas Day
That’s the island greeting that we send to you
From the land where palm trees sway
Here we know that Christmas
Will be green and bright
The sun to shine by day
And all the stars at night
Mele Kalikimaka is Hawaii’s way
To say Merry Christmas to you
Here we know that Christmas
Will be green and bright
The sun to shine by day
And all the stars at night
Mele Kalikimaka is Hawaii’s way
To say Merry Christmas to you
Mele Kalikimaka is the thing to say
On a bright Hawian Christmas Day
That’s the island greeting that we send to you
From the land where palm trees sway
Here we know that Christmas
Will be green and bright
The sun to shine by day
And all the stars at night
Mele Kalikimaka is Hawaii’s way
To say Merry Christmas
A very Merry Christmas
A very, very Merry, Merry Christmas to you
If you want to learn how to play Mele Kalikimaka and more Christmas Ukulele songs, check out our Christmas Ukulele song collection, where you can find not only the songs, but the song sheets with chords on top and awesome backing tracks to make your playing even more fun!
