Fond Farewell to ‘Farewell My Tane’

My wistful belief that the supposedly Polynesian song “My Tane” was meant to be sung by a man to his sweetheart has finally been crushed.

After writing that I had first heard it sung by my Hawaiian chief when I was a young scullion in the merchant marine, and that it had always caused my chest to tighten, I was shattered by a letter from Ann Jensen of El Segundo.

Ms. Jensen wrote that tane is the Tahitian word for kane , the Hawaiian word for male, husband, male sweetheart and man.

To nail the point, she said she had listened to her recording of “My Tane” as sung by Kahaunaniomaunakea-kauiokalawa (Haunani) Kahalewai. “Her deep rich voice told the same poignant story as I am sure your Hawaiian chief scullion did with his ukulele so many years ago.”

That should have been evidence enough, but one gives up one’s illusions grudgingly. So I was quick to reject Ms. Jensen’s argument when songwriter Mort Greene recalled that he had helped young Dick Gump with the lyrics of an unfinished “My Tane” back in the early 1930s. Greene was playing piano in a Sunset Boulevard nightclub that Gump frequented.

As for Tane meaning male, he said, it was just a name that sounded good. He noted that there is no such place as Manakoora, but Frank Loesser liked the sound of it and put it on the musical map with “The Moon of Manakoora.”

My conviction was reinforced when Greene sent me a tape he had received from Hawaii. It was of a male voice singing the chorus only, the simple, familiar, haunting words I knew.

Farewell my Tane, child of a coral sea . . .

“With all respect for Kahaunaniomaunakeakauiokalawa,” I wrote, “if Tane happens to mean man in Tahitian, what difference does it make? ‘My Tane’ isn’t, after all, a Hawaiian song, nor even a Tahitian song. It’s a Sunset Boulevard song.”

Alas, my smug vindication was short-lived. I have received two copies of the sheet music, one from the present assignees of the copyright, Bourne Co., music publishers, New York. George Perl, West Coast representative, calls my attention to the verse:

On the isle of Tahiti

Lived a native lad and a maid

And one day they just parted,

And to him she sang this serenade. . . .

The other is a tattered copy published by Irving Berlin Inc. (now Bourne Inc.), with a copyright dated 1934. It was sent to me by Lucile Jacobs, of Camarillo, who said she found it in Second Helpings, an Ojai thrift shop.

I am obliged to report that this copy has exactly the same verse; besides, both are titled “My Tane,” not “Farewell My Tane,” as I had always supposed, and both have a subtitle, in parentheses: “My Man.” On each copy the composers are listed as August Goupil, Dick Gump and Johnny Noble.

Noble, Hawaiian born, was the composer of such hits as “Hawaiian War Chant,” “My Little Grass Shack in Kealakekua, Hawaii,” “Hilo Hattie” and “King Kamehameha.” He is also given credit in the ASCAP biographical dictionary for “My Tane”; so is Gump. Goupil is not listed, nor is Greene.

I have an idea, as Greene’s story suggests, that Gump, being a novice, took his unpolished song to Noble for help in completing it and getting it published. I have no idea what role Goupil played in the enterprise.

By the way, I wrote that Greene had composed “Beyond the Blue Horizon” and “My Grandmother’s Clock,” among others. He wrote music for the movie “Beyond the Blue Horizon,” but did not write the song. He is credited with “My Grandfather’s Clock” for a new version he wrote of the old song, after its copyright had expired, for Lawrence Welk.

I hope Ms. Jensen will accept my apology for doubting her assurance that “My Tane” is a woman’s song. I can say only that I was blinded by a youthful passion. I am not only disenchanted, but also hurt, like a small child who has just found out there is no Santa Claus.

As Ms. Jensen said in conclusion, “Eh brah, mebbe lucky fo’ you you no find da kine tane. Mo’ bettah get haole wahine fo’ wife!”

Yes, no doubt I am happier with my haole wahine wife than I would have been with Tane.