Dedicated to Bama!

The song is about a former island boy, dreaming and remembering home's great moments but finding it hard to return after time away. He sings achingly in the chorus, "Me ke aloha ku'u home 'o Kahalu'u" ("With love my dearest home, Kahalu'u"). He finds it hard, despite his good memories because "I fear you won't be like I left you," so that not only the place changes but the speaker changes to such a degree that the place doesn't provide the same nourishment that it once did, leaving him guilty. The "younger" and "wiser" days, when "the world was small enough for dreams," are gone forever because the singer didn't stay, and he feels alienated. But the speaker realizes he has to accept change because although it can "make you lose your pride," it also "can help you find yourself." In reconciliation, he sings, "I will greet you as I find you" and also to "please accept me as you find me." I understood the song's message in terms of clichés like "you can never go home again" and "you can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy."