Originally posted December 2012.

This was the first song the duo at the restaurant I had brunch at today played after setting up their ukulele and stand-up bass.

Here’s local girl Bette Midler singing “Mele Kalikimaka” from her 2006 album “Cool Yule”.

The song was written in 1949 by Robert Alexander Anderson, another local. He was born in Honolulu in 1894 and wrote more than 100 songs about the islands. This one and “Lovely Hula Hands” are his most famous compositions.

The first major recording of the song was probably that done by Bing Crosby. He was a regular golf partner of Anderson’s when Bing was in the islands, and Anderson played it for him shortly after writing it. In 1950 Crosby recorded it with The Andrews Sisters and made a present of it to Anderson.