Hello, Hawaii, How Are You?

Hello, Hawaii, How Are You? is a song written in 1915, by Jean Schwartz, Bert Kalmar and Edgar Leslie.

The song refers to one of Marconi's then-new radio-oriented inventions, the Wireless Telephone, which became publicly available that year. It was initially very expensive to use, and this song underscores the caller's desperation to talk to his or her sweetheart in Hawaii, from his or her home in New York City.

The song was recorded in 1915 by Billy Murray, backed with an instrumental version by Pietro Deiro on Side B; and later that year by Broadway star Nora Bayes.

This was Murray's version of the chorus. It was easily adaptable for a woman to sing with just a couple of word changes: Captain Jinks, one night on Broadway, all alone, Read the news about the wireless telephone. Pretty soon his thoughts began to stray, over seven thousand miles away. He went through a whole month's pay just to phone and say:

Hello, Hawaii, how are you?
Let me talk to Honolulu Lou
To ask her this
Give me a kiss
Give me a kiss
By wireless
Please state
I can't wait
To hear her reply
For I had to pawn
Ev'ry little thing I own
To talk from New York
Through the wireless telephone
Oh, Hello, Hawaii, how are you?
Good-bye!


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.