Mele Kalikimaka


"Mele Kalikimaka" is a Hawaiian-themed Christmas song written in 1949 by R. Alex Anderson. It takes its title from the Hawaiian transliteration of "Merry Christmas", Mele Kalikimaka. One of the earliest recordings of the song was by Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters in 1950 on Decca. It has been covered by many artists and used in several films.

History of the song

R. Alex Anderson recalled the inspiration for writing the song in 1949 while working at Vonn Hamm-Young:
Bing Crosby was a frequent visitor and golf partner of Anderson. Anderson played the song for Crosby, who liked it so much that he surprised Anderson with the 1950 recording. In 1955, the song became part of the reissue of Crosby's famous compilation album Merry Christmas. According to Anderson's daughter Pam, the family still receives revenues from all over the world every year from his songs including "Mele Kalikimaka".

Origin of the phrase

The expression Mele Kalikimaka is a loan phrase from English, but since the Hawaiian language has a different phonological system from English, it is not possible to render a pronunciation that is especially close to Merry Christmas. Standard Hawaiian does not have the or sounds of English and its phonotactic constraints do not allow consonants at the end of syllables or consonant clusters. Thus, the closest approximation to Merry Christmas is Mele Kalikimaka. The earliest record of the greeting, Mele Kalikimaka, in print is from 1904, in the Hawaiian language newspaper Ka Nupepa Kuokoa, published between 1861 and 1927.
The phrase is derived from English as follows:
; Merry Christmas
; Mery Carisimasa
; Mery Karisimasa
; Mele Kalisimasa
; Mele Kalikimaka

Charts

Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters version
Chart Peak
position
Australia 63
Greece International 56
Latvia 94
Lithuania 70
Portugal 147
Sweden Heatseeker 18
US Holiday 100 25
US Rolling Stone Top 10032