I chose to sing Me He Manu Rere - as I remembered singing it at primary school in the 1960's. I hadn't heard it recently, and it doesn't seem to be a song the young ones learn at school now - I am not sure why? What I did find out is that it was sung at Whakarewarewa in the 1920's and 30's for tourists - described as "a NZ Folk Song", but attributed to Arnold Reedy around 1925? In the 1960's it was described as a "Women's Action Song", in which two words needed to be changed from te (my) to to (your) so as sung by women, not a man singing his passionate dream love song. This was published in "Maori Action Songs" A H Reed 1960, put together by Alan Anderson and Rupene Ngata. Unfortunately I was unable to find the actions for it, get the tune going to sing to ... so it is only me! I apologise for some of the poor pronunciation - I am trying to "unlearn" some of the pronunciations I grew up with.
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