Now Is the Hour

The story

"Now Is the Hour", in Māori "Pō Atarau", is a popular song of the early 20th century. It is often wrongly described as a traditional Māori song: its making is usually credited to several people. The tune first became known in 1913, when W.H. Paling and Co published it in Australia as "Swiss Cradle Song", a piano piece of eight variations on a 16-bar theme, credited to "Clement Scott". Some sources say the British critic and travel writer Clement Scott wrote it after a tour of New Zealand; the family of the Australian Albert Saunders has long claimed the name was his pseudonym, and the Australian composer Clarence Elkin also claimed it. A court case shortly after Saunders' death was inconclusive, but his son has shown journalists handwritten compositions by Saunders that Paling published under the name "Clement Scott". The journalist Max Cryer concluded in 2020 that Scott was really Saunders, and the National Library of Australia credits Saunders as the composer. Paling sold 130,000 copies.

Around 1915 Māori words were added and the tune slightly changed. As "Po Atarau" it was sung as a farewell to Māori soldiers leaving for the First World War, after which some white New Zealanders took it for an old Māori folk song. One claim gives the first words to two Māori families of sheep shearers, the Grace and Awatere families of Tuparoa.

In 1920 Maewa Kaihau wrote an opening verse in English for her daughter, who had grown attached to a member of a visiting royal party who was soon to leave; she also changed the tune and added another Māori text. When the song became popular she claimed words and tune as her own, but Paling asserted its copyright in the tune; her words were copyrighted in 1928. In 1935 she reworked it as the "Haere Ra Waltz Song", played as the last waltz at dances and farewells. Ana Hato made the first recording in 1927.

The English singer Gracie Fields learned "Haere Ra" from her driver while visiting Rotorua in 1945. Her manager, Dorothy Stewart, is credited with changing the opening line to the words of the English title and adding a verse, and the song became a world-wide hit in 1948, when seven recordings reached the Billboard charts in the United States; Bing Crosby's was No. 1 for three weeks, his last No. 1 hit. Newcastle United supporters sang it in the last minutes of the 1955 FA Cup Final, and in 1997 military bands played it as British representatives left Hong Kong on HMY Britannia after the handover. Hayley Westenra sang it at the closing of the 2011 Rugby World Cup.

What it says

A song of farewell to someone leaving across the sea; tender and wistful.

The words

The words of this song are still in copyright, so they are not printed here. “What it says” above gives their theme in our own words, and the performance below lets you hear them.