One night in Paekok

Tu Tangata, Issue 25, 1 August 1985, Page 17

One night in Paekok

Prof. Titonui Series

Hoani, a friend of mine from Ngati Raukawa, likes to tell people how he taught Michael Jackson to sing and dance when they were crutching together in the Wairarapa. This obviously isn’t true it’s well known in the north that before he hit the big time Miki Mangu, as he was affectionately known, was working in the Sweetwater nursery of the Aupouri forest. What's more, he was boarding with my cousin Puti at Waimanoni, so I know what I’m talking about.

Nevertheless, Hoani’s version has a lesson to teach us and that is the way that other people are continually finding wealth and fame at the expense of us Maoris and this is particularly true in the entertainment industry.

Many of our songs have been stolen by unscrupulous musicians and Hollywood producers. After a bit of adaptation for pakeha audiences these are then re-released and become famous hits. The poor composer gets nothing.

This has happened to me a number of times. When I wrote my opera “Kaingahoha, the life of the village” I composed a number of songs about Te Taitokerau which were plagiarised in this way and have since become wellknown songs in fancy Hollywood musicals. You’ve probably never heard this before:

“Take me back to the gum swamps, The gum swamps of North Auckland, To that beautiful Aupouri country That I 10ve....’’ And yet everyone is familiar with Doris Day in “Calamity Jane” singing: “Take me back to the Black Hills, The Black Hills of Dakota, To the beautiful Indian country That I 10ve....’’ And do you know where the theme from Oklahoma comes from? Not Oklahoma, that’s for sure: “A-a-ahipara, where the wind comes whistling o’er the dunes, Where the toheroa Are seen no more So Te Rarawa exist on prunes, A-a-ahipara... A-a-ahipara... Kei runga i te Oneroa a Tohe Ahipara, hiha!" Other musicals offer evidence of the same shameful process. Take “West Side Story”, for example. It's probably well-known to most readers that “I Want to be in America” started life as “I Want to be in a Maori Car”, but did you know that another song came from the Islands? “There’s a place for us, Samoa....”

And so it goes on. In fact, this kind of musical plunder has become so widespread that occasionally we assume a familiar song had Maori origins when just for once it really did originate in the west. Ngati Toa’s claim to the “Porirua Chorus” is a case in point. It has to be remembered that Handel wrote “The Messiah”, which contains the much beloved “Alleluia Chorus”, long before Ngati Toa had their eye on the southern end of Te Ika a Maui.

Nevertheless, the balance is very much in favour of the Maori composers. There is room here for only one more example one which annoys me particularly not only because the original composition was, once again, my own, but also because it is a current hit and I hear it on my radio every day. I originally wrote the song in one of those bursts of creative genius which hit me from time to time. On this occasion it was sparked off by a pleasant evening

spent in the company of friends in the Paekakariki Hotel. As I staggered out into the cool of the night and realised I had missed the last train to Wellington I made up a little ditty to hum to take my mind off my plight. I called it “One Night in Paekok”. I can only assume that a record producer was also arrested that night and slept in the adjoining cell, for within weeks I was astonished to hear it on the radio only this time called “One Night in Bangkok”, wherever that is.

But enough of my experiences. Tu Tangata would like to hear from other readers who can report similar musical rip-offs either from them individually or from their tribes. It is proposed that the song judged the best wins the grand prize of one night in Paekok with Professor Titonui. The second prize is two nights.

Next issue: Who was first to the moon?