A LULLABY OF LONGING AND SALTY HORIZONS
“Drowsy Waters (Wailana)” is a tender, dream‑laden tribute to love and longing, voiced by country legend Marty Robbins atop the softly rolling steel guitars of his 1963 Hawaiian‑inspired album Hawaii’s Calling Me.
Robbins’s recording of this song appears on Hawaii’s Calling Me, released in 1963. While the album did not spawn a top‑pop single, its very existence signified Robbins’s remarkable musical breadth — a country star embracing the gentle sway and wistful lyricism of hapa‑haole ballads. According to his discography, “Hawaii’s Calling Me” is listed without a charting single for this track, suggesting it was more of an artistic gesture than a commercial gambit.
Robbins was already well-known for his narrative Western and country songs — but on Hawaii’s Calling Me, he stepped into a different world. With “Drowsy Waters (Wailana)”, he interprets a Hawaiian classic originally written by Jack Ailau. The melody, the instrumentation, and even Robbins’s vocal delivery feel suffused with salt air and nostalgia, as if he were lying on a shore under a tropical moon, remembering lost love.
Lyrically, the song speaks in softly plaintive metaphors. The “drowsy waters” become emblematic of the beloved’s eyes — calm, deep, and hypnotic. The speaker longs for “tender sighs,” for kisses and quiet presence, for the scent of her hair and the warmth of memories. There is a bittersweet tension: the beloved is near in memory and in voice, but physically distant — “why are we apart … without you naught of joy remains.” The imagery reinforces that sense of distance: rainbows in the sky, palms in the wind, a voice calling “far o’er the sea.”
Musically, Robbins leans into the Hawaiian vibe not by imitating, but by respectfully integrating it. The arrangement favors steel guitar, gentle strings, and a laid‑back tempo: more waltz than country two-step. This gives his voice room to float, to linger, to caress each phrase as though he’s speaking to someone over water. He manages to evoke both the innocence of a love song and the maturity of someone who remembers what it’s like to wait — and to yearn.
While “Drowsy Waters (Wailana)” never became a commercial smash, its significance lies elsewhere. It stands as one of Marty Robbins’s most elegant cross‑genre experiments. It showcases a lesser-known dimension of his artistry: not just the cowboy with a six‑string, but a romantic storyteller capable of channeling the spirit of the islands. In the broader arc of his career — filled with gunfighter ballads, heartbreak tunes, and desert wanderings — this song is a delicate, shimmering pause, a moment when he lets the ocean’s hush speak for him.
To the listener today, Robbins’s version feels timeless. It invites someone to close their eyes, surf the edge of memory, and drift in that “drowsy” tide, holding onto a love that might be far away — but whose echo remains, gentle as the sea breeze at dusk.