The first time he heard it being sung, during a long-distance phone call with comedian Rap Reiplinger, record producer Jon de Mello knew that “Fate Yanagi” was going to be a hit.
Reiplinger was in Los Angeles, strumming an ukulele while de Mello listened in Honolulu, unable to stop laughing. And it kept getting better: Reiplinger played other songs that would become his first album, “Poi Dog,” which was produced by de Mello’s Mountain Apple Co.
“I was on the floor laughing,” said de Mello, who sent his friend a plane ticket the next day to bring him back to Hawaii.
This was midsummer 1978, after Reiplinger split with the comic trio Booga Booga and disappeared for about six months, de Mello said. Reiplinger had been writing and performing pidgin material on the L.A. comedy scene without success.
“It went right over their head,” de Mello said. “They had no idea what he was talking about.”
“Poi Dog,” which was recorded in five days, included material that would cement Reiplinger into Hawaii’s pantheon of pidgin performers: “Room Service,” “Portuguese Huddle” and “Mahalo Airlines,” which he was once asked to perform during an interisland flight.
Snippets of songs were used on the radio by Honolulu disc jockey Hal “Aku Head” Lewis, and at that point the public couldn’t get enough Reiplinger. Mountain Apple started getting thousands of album orders a week.
De Mello never knew Faith (Tachino) Tomoyasu, only that Reiplinger had a friend who inspired “Fate Yanagi.” But it didn’t matter. What was real was Reiplinger’s comic delivery.
“He remembered all the stuff we did growing up and everyone before us,” de Mello said. “It wasn’t over the top at all. It wasn’t fake. It was real.”
“Poi Dog” and the “Fate Yanagi” song are available on iTunes and Amazon.com. Videos of the song can be found on YouTube.
"Fate Yanagi," by Rap Reiplinger,
from "Poi Dog," 1978, Mountain Apple Co.
(Add your own pidgin accent)
[Spoken]
I wrote this song about an hour before I had massive brain hemorrhage,
and I’d like to do it for you now
[Singing]
This is a story about the day I died,
Bodysurfing Point Panic and got caught in the tide
Swept 500 miles out to sea,
It took the Coast Guard four days to find me
I was deaf ear, I never like listen
Now I stay Queen’s in critical condition
My friend Bernard came in and said,
"Waste time I came, I thought you was dead"
I said, "Bernard, do one favor for me,
Give my aloha to the people you see,
and especially …"
[Chorus]
Tell Fate Yanagi I love her
(I love her)
Tell Fate Yanagi I need her
Tell Fate Yanagi no go cry
And no go out with Mits Funai
(Mits Funai)
Tell Barry Santos I’m sorry
(I’m sorry)
I dinged his board but no worry,
I get can resin underneath my bed
And he can have ‘um, when I’m dead
(When I’m dead)
[Spoken]
Point Panic was unreal; 90 feet and glassy
I looked back and the wave coming at me was so big
I knew my eggs was headed for that big omelet in the sky.
As I was choking underneath the water,
I could only think of one thing:
Air
And then her, my honey,
Fate Yanagi: head cheerleader at Furtado Memorial High School
And in the foaming merciless sea, I called out to her:
[Garbled by water] Fate! Fate Yanagi, I love you!
[Chorus]
Tell Fate Yanagi I love her
(I love her)
Tell Fate Yanagi I need her
Tell Fate Yanagi no go cry
And no go out with Mits Funai
(with Mits Funai)
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