Source: Radio New Zealand
Alongside hits by The Beatles and Harry Styles, the soundtrack to sci-fi blockbuster Project Hail Mary waiata ‘Pō Atarau’ , a song originally written in te reo Māori which became a global hit in English as ‘Now is the Hour’ .
Erima Maewa Kaihau (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Te Ata ) — the woman who first penned its vocal melody and original te reo lyrics back in the mid-1910s — didn’t receive the attribution or payment she deserved for her song’s success, says Austin Haynes.
“It’s a real shame that she has lain forgotten for such a long time, and that the song has become detached from her own name and kōrero , her own story,” he tells RNZ’s Nights.
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Around this time, she added a vocal melody and te reo Māori lyrics to the tune of the ‘Swiss Cradle Song’ – a popular piano piece by Australian composer Clement Scott.
The resulting song, named both ‘Haera Ra’ and ‘Pō Atarau’, was written when Māori and Pākehā New Zealanders were still “learning how to love each other and how to live as neighbours for each other”, Haynes says.
Like many other waiata composed in the 1910s, though — including ‘Pōkarekare Ana’ ‘Hine e Hine’ Māori and Pākehā musical languages, he says.
“I think we can, as a country, be really, really proud of this shared heritage that we have through waiata .”
Austin Haynes is a scholar, translator and opera singer.
Lexus Song Quest in association with the Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation
Although many of Kaihau ‘s relatives had fought in World War I, her whānau believes ‘Pō Atarau’
There’s a fantastic thread there about the role that wāhine Māori play as diplomats through waiata – a realm in which women get to absolutely shine.
Austin Hayden
“There’s a fantastic thread there about the role that wāhine Māori , Māori women, play as diplomats through waiata – a realm in which women get to absolutely shine,” Haynes says.
From the 1920s, ‘Pō Atarau’ Māori cultural performances in Rotorua . Present at one such performance at the end of WWII was British singer Gracie Fields, who fell in love with it.
In 1945 — four years after Kaihau ‘s death and ten years after it’s believed that the rights for ‘Pō Atarau’ were sold to a New Zealand music company for just 10 pounds — Fields released an English version of the song as ‘Now is the Hour’. After it shot to worldwide popularity, the farewell song was later recorded by crooners Bing Crosby, Vera Lynn and Frank Sinatra.
Gracie Fields (1898 – 1979) became a popular film actress in the 1930s, known affectionately in her home country of England as ‘Our Gracie’ and ‘the Lancashire Lass’.
WolfTracerArchive / Photo12 via AFP
Despite the extraordinary global success of ‘Now is the Hour’ , most people know very little about the “fascinating” woman credited with writing its original vocal melody and lyrics, Haynes says.
As well as composing “utterly beautiful waiata “, Erima Maewa Kaihau was also a skilled pianist, fantastic singer, gifted singing teacher and composer of poetry in both te reo and English, he says.
To Haynes, it’s fitting that her song, in being written for both a Pākehā and Māori audience, was included in Project Hail Mary’ s story of “intergalactic friend-making”, but also a real shame that her name and story have “become detached” along the way.
This was the fate of many other waiata Māori that were labelled as “folk songs”, he says, including some “composed by people who we have photos of, whose great-grandchildren are still alive today”.
Haynes hopes that 85 years after Kaihau’s death, the pioneering composer would be happy to know that her “mana and ongoing excellence” is finally being recognised, and that there may be more recognition to come.
While researching his PhD thesis in archives around the country, Haynes found the archived manuscripts of up to ten unpublished waiata he believes she wrote.
“Hopefully in the next couple of years, there’ll be opportunities to share those [waiata ] and to repatriate those to descendants, and to share those with new audiences.”
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
