Bali Ha'i

Bali Ha'i was based on the real island of Ambae (formerly Aoba Island). Ambae is located in Vanuatu (known as New Hebrides at the time the song was written).

Ambae is visible on the horizon from Espiritu Santo island, where James A. Michener was stationed in World War II. Michener is the author of Tales of the South Pacific which is the basis for the musical South Pacific. The author used the tranquil, hazy image of the smoothly sloping island on the horizon to represent a not-so-distant but always unattainable place of innocence and happiness. Hence the longing nature of the song. In his 1992 memoir, The World Is My Home, Michener writes of his time in the Treasury Islands: "On a rude signboard attached to a tree, someone had affixed a cardboard giving the settlement's name, and it was so completely different from ordinary names, so musical to my ear that I borrowed a pencil and in a soggy notebook jotted the name against the day when I might want to use if for some purpose I could not then envisage: Bali-ha'i."

Rodgers and Hammerstein were inspired by the way that James Michener described the island, so they wanted to include a song about it when they began work on the musical. When Richard Rodgers first read Oscar Hammerstein II's lyrics to this song over lunch with Joshua Logan, he "could hear the music to go with the words". He knew that this song should evoke a mystical, languorous, Oriental quality that the story called for. This can be seen in the many chromatic notes in the melody.

The song inspired an extra touch in the scenic designs of Jo Mielziner, who drenched the top of his design for the island with water to evoke mist. This in turn prompted Hammerstein to write an extra lyric for the interlude in the song, about the "low-flying cloud" that covers the island.

In the 1958 film version, Bali Ha'i is portrayed by the real-life island of Tioman in Malaysia. However, the scene was filmed on the north shore of Kauaʻi and Mount Makana was used as Bali Hai which is still known as Bali Hai today. Tunnel's Beach is often referred to as "Nurses' Beach" and the scene where Bloody Mary sings of Bali Ha'i takes place on Hanalei Bay.