I have come to realise over time that sometimes when I say to people I am a kiwi, they look at me weird and think I mean the fruit, kiwifruit. Ummm, no. I mean I am a New Zealander, and we call ourselves kiwis because of our super adorable native bird and nation icon, the kiwi:

(Image from here)

I feel like I needed to clear that up because how random would it be if my blog name was Kiwi(fruit)yogirunner? More random than I meant it to be anyway.

So speaking of my awesome country which I miss very much and cannot wait to say hello to again ASAP, I wanted to do a little post on my fave NZ music instead of the standard Friday Favourites of every random thing in my life that is making me happy. Don’t worry guys, the complete randomness will be back again next week.

#1 To start off with: Lorde. You all know Lorde right? Royals? Super famous grammy winning kiwi girl from ma hood? She is awesome. We are all pretty darn proud of her because we are a small country and kiwis who do stuff like win grammys are pretty impressive. I LOVE all of Lorde’s songs (although honestly Royals has been way overplayed and I do not want to hear it again for at least a year), but three of my absolute favourites are:

Bravado:

Tennis Court:

Buzzcut Season:

#2 Bic Runga. I am pretty sure every kiwi knows who Bic Runga is, and she is AWESOME. It feels like I have been listening to her my entire life.

Drive:

Beautiful collision:

#3 Dave Dobbyn: Loyal. This song is a hugely iconic song in NZ, and when we hosted the America’s Cup (which is a huge deal with us kiwis), this song was the theme song. I sang it a thousand songs at primary school and it always brings me back to that time in the best way.

#4 Split Enz. Hugely successful NZ band with a whole lot of great songs.

Six Months in a Leaky Boat:

#5 Howard Morrison Quartet: My old man’s an All Black. A parody of “My old man’s a dustman”, this song was a humourous way of protesting the All Black team being selected with no Maori members in it back in the day. It was actually recorded in the town where I was born and they had to lock the doors to the town hall to stop people from leaving… I promise it’s a good humourous song though 🙂 and definitely a part of NZ history.

#6  Brooke Fraser. I was obsessed with Brooke Fraser during my tweens and this song was HUGE at that time.

Arithmetic:

I also love this song of hers, Albertine:

#7 Blam Blam Blam: There is no depression in New Zealand. I don’t really listen to this song but I had to include it cos it’s pretty famous and I kindof just think the song title is awesome.

#8 Finally, NZ’s unofficial National Anthem: Pokarekare ana, sung by NZ’s Dame Kiri Te Kanawa. I also like this version because you can hear the NZ wildlife in the video 🙂

Dad, if I forgot someone important, I am very sorry and I promise I will amend the list with your approval 🙂

What is a famous/fave song from where you live?