Bigger in Oz: tracks that were more popular in Australia than in their countries of origin. See also: Only in Melbourne.
These are two different songs called Hawaii,
both recorded by popular American artists. They charted Top 10 in
Australia within a few months of each other in 1964 but did not chart in the
USA.
22. The Beach Boys - Hawaii
(Brian Wilson)
USA 1963
Capitol album Surfer Girl (USA) ST-1981 September 1963
Columbia single (Australia only) CP-1551 January 1964
Australian charts: #2 Sydney, #5 Melbourne, #1 Brisbane, #7 Adelaide | #9 Australia
US charts: Not released as a single
23. Gene Pitney - Hawaii
(Al Kooper - Bob Brass - Irwin Levine)
USA 1964
Musicor single #MU 1040 July 1964
United Artists single (Australia) UA 1059 August 1964 (entered charts)
Australian charts: #8 Sydney, #5 Brisbane, #7 Adelaide | #6 Australia.
Co-charted with the A-side It Hurts To Be In Love which was a hit in all capital cities.
US charts: The A-side was a Top 10 hit but Hawaii did not chart in its own right.
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22. The Beach Boys - Hawaii
Written by The Beach Boys' Brian Wilson, Hawaii was an album track in the USA but it became the A-side of a single in Australia and, as far as I can see, nowhere else.
That is not surprising. Hawaii is a surf song that focuses away from the Beach Boys' milieu of California. By January 1964 when the single was released here, Australia had a thriving surf music industry of its own. This is a country with a strong beach culture, and you didn't have to be a surfie to like the music.
It was also the summer of Beatlemania, and the British Invasion was under way. At Sydney radio station 2SM, Beatles records were at #1, #2 and #6, and there were already other British Invasion bands on the chart. Teen idols were shampooing out their hair oil, instrumental bands were recruiting singers, and the surf era was fading.
On the 17 January 1964 Top 100 chart from 2SM,1 the 50 highest charting records included:
7 British bands (9 records: 16%)
9 Australian singles: 18% (all beach- or surf-themed)
8 original Australian compositions.
Nine months later, the surf craze had passed. The 2SM Top 100 for 16 October 1964 still had Jan & Dean's Ride The Wild Surf, and The Hondels' Little Honda, from a surf music sub-genre around cars and motorbikes that had been around as long ago as The Beach Boys' B-side 409 (1962). October's highest 50 tracks at 2SM included:
11 British bands2 (15 records: 30%)
2 Australian singles3 (4%)
1 original Australian composition.
By October, even the Beach Boys had moved on from the sun, sand and surfing of Hawaii (and California). They appear at #57 on the 16 October chart with When I Grow Up (To Be A Man). Its reflective lyrics and innovative arrangement hinted at their further development. Far from being set back by the British Invasion, their album Pet Sounds (1966), partly inspired by The Beatles' Rubber Soul (1965), would in turn be acknowledged as an influence on The Beatles' Sgt Peppers' Lonely Hearts Band (1967).
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Footnotes
1. I have reservations about radio station surveys, but I use 2SM's chart as a reflection of what this prominent Top 40 station would have been playing. And a good selection of its Top 100 charts is available at rateyourmusic.com.
2. Even though they were not a British Invasion band, I counted The Shadows for being British.
3. There were two New Zealand records in the top 50: Ray Columbus & The Invaders - She's A Mod (#3) and Dinah Lee - Don't You Know Yockomo (#49)
23. Gene Pitney - Hawaii
This is not a surf song, rather a romantic picture postcard about an emotional parting under the moonlight on O'ahu Bay: Love is right here in Hawaii, Must it end with a tear in Hawaii?
Gene Pitney released so many excellent and varied records that his songs you remember might depend on where you lived. I have previously posted about Billy You're My Friend (1968), popular in Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane but not in Sydney, the US or Britain; and Mecca (1963), which charted #12 US and #7 Australia but didn't make the Top 75 in Britain.
Hawaii was the B-side of Pitney's hit It Hurts To Be In Love. In Australia, both sides charted in Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide, but the A-side alone was a hit in Melbourne, Perth, the US, and Britain ..
This happened with Who Needs It (1964), a B-side that charted Top 10 in Australia but had been forgotten by Pitney when he noticed Australian audiences calling out, 'Who needs it?' and realised they weren't heckling him but were requesting the song.
For background on Hawaii, including its writers Al Kooper, Bob Brass and Irwin Levine, I cannot do better than to recommend the detailed page by Ray McGinnis at his website about singles that charted on radio surveys in Vancouver, Canada. Hawaii comes in at #9 Vancouver. It is typical of Ray's thoroughness that he mentions the song's #8 Sydney.
The Beach Boys- Hawaii (1963)
Gene Pitney- Hawaii (1964)
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