How Far I’ll Go (Ryan’s Hawaiian Version) – I Hea Ana Wau

I just love this song so I decided to translate it into Hawaiian because why not? Translating songs is something I love to do and do all the time. I’ve translated many songs into Hawaiian, French, and English, so I go ahead and share the lyrics here as well as some of my word choice motivations, since that’s what makes translating songs and poems particularly difficult.

The thing that makes a song a song is actually a collection of things:

• The lyrics
• The meter
• The melody

So as we look at this translation, we have to keep in mind several guiding questions:

1. How do I translate the meaning (not necessarily the actual words) and also use similar mouth shapes? Because any singer can tell you that singing an “oooh” sound is very different from singing an “eeee” sound, especially if you’re in the high and low registers of your voice.
2. How do I align the stress pattern of the language with the rhythm and meter of the song? There are down beats and upbeats, which tend to want to fall on a stressed syllable. This, above all in my opinion, is the difference between a native sounding song and an obviously translated song. And this is precisely what most American singers get wrong when they sing in another language (usually Spanish).
3. Where am I going to take my breaths?
4. What key can I sing in comfortably to capture (to the extent I am able to) the emotional register, the volume changes, and vocal embellishments? And part two of this for me is, how difficult are those chords to play on my baritone ʻukulele?

 

How Far I’ll Go Lin-Manuel Miranda, Opetaia Foaʻi, Mark Mancina E F#m C#m A I’ve been staring At the edge of the water Long as I can remember Never really knowing why I wish I could be the perfect daughter But I come back to the water No matter how hard I try C#m B E Am Every turn I take, every trail I track Every path I make, every road leads back To the place I know Ehere I cannot go Where I long to be E F#m C#m A E F#m C#m Am See the line where the sky Meets the sea? It calls me? And no one knows, how far it goes If the wind in my sail on the sea Stays behind me One day I’ll know If I go there’s just no telling How far I’ll go I know everybody on this island Seems so happy, on this island Everything is by design I know everybody on this island Has a role, on this island So maybe I can roll with mine I can lead with pride I can make us strong I’ll be satisfied if I play along But the voice inside Sings a different song “What is wrong with me?” See the light as it shines on the sea? It’s blinding But no one knows, how deep it goes And it seems like it’s calling out to me, So come find me And let me know What’s beyond that line? Will I cross that line? F C Am G F C Am Bb C F See the line where the sky Meets the sea? It calls me And no one knows, how far it goes If the wind in my sail on the sea Stays behind me One day I’ll know How far I’ll go

I Hea Ana Wau Translation by Ryan Keawekāne E F#m C#m A Mahope mai kuʻu wā hānau E kau nui ai Nā maka maluna O ia kapakai E aho e hoʻolono, e maliu I kuʻu mau mākua akā paʻa Ka manaʻo i ka wai C#m B E Am Ma nā ala āpau aʻu e hahau E hoʻi hoʻi au i ia kahi kau Mawaho ka palena O kuʻu hiki Kahi aʻu e hili E F#m C#m A E F#m C#m Am Eia ka ʻilikai hoʻi kā E heahea mai nei ʻEhia hoʻi kona lōʻihi? I paʻa nō ka makani Me kuʻu mau lauoha Pēlā e ʻike au Inā ʻo wau ke hele I hea ana wau A mau ka poʻe o ia ʻāina E hauʻoli ma ia ʻāina a Oia mau ā mau… He kuleana kō kākou o ka ʻāina No ka mālama ʻāina a ʻAʻole e koe ai au… He alakaʻi nō He ikaika nō He hauʻoli nō, iaʻu e wiwo ʻOiai nei leo E hoʻolale mau “He aha hoʻi lā kāu?” Eia mai ka ʻaʻā ke pā mai nei Ma-o ke kai Hiki ana nō i ka lipolipo? Kohu mea lā ke hea mai nei “E huli mai ē, I ʻike ʻoe, He aha kēlā ao Ma kēlā ʻaoʻao?” F C Am G F C Am Bb C F Eia ka ʻilikai hoʻi kā E heahea mai nei ʻEhia hoʻi kona lōʻihi I paʻa nō ka makani Me kuʻu mau lauoha Pēlā e ʻike au I hea ana wau!

Themes and Word Choices

Hawaiian has a very small phoneme inventory so rhyming so easy as to have been devalued in antiquity — meaning, Hawaiian songs don’t rhyme. However, because this is a Western-style song, rhyming helps the meter, so I implemented a rhyming structure that’s easy to identify. Considering again the shape of the mouth while singing, I try wherever possible to ensure that the translated words and the original lyrics also rhyme. The difficulty is adhering to the intended meaning. The source text in “How Far I’ll Go” along with the context from the movie Moana itself provide guidance to the translator in the form of overarching themes. Some of these themes include:

• Water and the ocean
• Traditionalism
• Fear of the unknown counterbalanced by a need to explore
• The importance of family
• Collectivism (“the good of the many outweigh the good of the few”) vs. Individualism (“being true to one’s self” – a very Western, and particularly American, concept)

With these in mind, I set out to find rhyming schemes that propel the story arc of the song along: “water” and “water’s edge” (wai – which rhymes nicely with “why?”; kapakai), “every path” (nā ala āpau), “beat” (hahau), “I inevitably return” (hoʻi hoʻi au), “situated” (kau), etc. Hahau ala “beat a path” in ma nā ala āpau aʻu e hahau (“all the paths I beat”) is a direct translation that isn’t really Hawaiian, but I think it works okay.

The hardest parts were the choruses and the second verse. The chorus has quick successions of rhymes (line, sky; knows, goes in the first chorus and light, shine; knows, goes in the second chorus), which English can handle well because of how short (generally speaking) the words are. The tricky translation is even more obvious in the second verse where “island” is “rhymed” with itself several times. The effect is the alliteration, where “I know” and “island” “rhyme” in the first syllable but not the second. What’s awesome is that the last line of the first chorus (“If I go, there’s just no telling how far I’ll go”) rhymes and has a similar cadence to the first two words of the line of the second verse (“I know”). In my translation, I had to sacrifice a little bit of the alliteration to preserve rhyming the last line of the first chorus (Inā ʻo wau ke hele, i hea ana wau) with the first two words of the first line of the second verse (A mau). To preserve the rest of “island” rhyming scheme, I finally arrived at using ʻāina “land,” which is obvious yet I only thought of it this morning. I was using moku “island, body of land” instead but that changed the rhyme pretty drastically from “island.” My original translation used the haole-ized translation of “island” ʻailana (seen infrequently, most notably in Makee ʻAilana). Unfortunately, the additional syllable threw everything off.

To help you understand how much word play is at play, here’s the English translation of my Hawaiian lyrics:

Where I’m Going

Since my birth my eyes have settled continuously
On the water’s edge
It’s better for me to obey and listen to my parents
But my mind is stuck on the water

Every path I beat
I inevitably return to that place situated
Beyond my reach
Where I wander around, lost

There’s the horizon right there calling me
How long, indeed, must it be?
If the wind is firm in my sails
Then if it’s me who goes,
I know where I’ll go

The people on this land are forever happy with this land
Just as they’ve always been
All of us on the land have a responsibility to care for the land
And that doesn’t exclude me

I can be a leader, I can be strong
I can be happy, if I’m also fearful
Although this voice keeps provoking me,
“What’s wrong with you?”

Here’s the glowing light shining on the sea
Does it reach to the deepest, darkest depths?
And it seems to be calling out to me, “Come find me,
So you’ll know
What’s the light on the other side”

There’s the horizon right there calling me
How long, indeed, must it be?
If the wind is firm in my sails
That’s how I’ll know
Where I’m going!

So what do you think? What songs would you like to see translated? Let me know in the comments below!