In the musical, Bali Ha'i is a volcanic island within sight of the island on which most of the action takes place. The troops think of Bali Ha'i as an exotic paradise, but it is off-limits—except to officers. Bali Ha'i's matriarch, Bloody Mary, conducts much business with the troops, and she meets Lt. Joseph Cable soon after he arrives. She sings to him her mysterious song "Bali Ha'i", with its haunting orchestral accompaniment, because she wants to entice him to visit her island. She doesn't tell him that she wants him to meet, and fall in love with, her young daughter Liat.
Resemblance to score for Bride of Frankenstein
Several commentators have noted that the opening melody of "Bali Ha'i" bears a resemblance to the "bride motif" in Franz Waxman's musical score for the 1935 film Bride of Frankenstein.[1][2][3][4] The two melodies share a three-note pattern.[3]
Ambae is visible on the horizon from Espiritu Santo island, where James A. Michener was stationed in World War II. Michener referred to the island in his book, 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.[citation needed] In his memoir, The World Is My Home (1992), 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 it for some purpose I could not then envisage: Bali-ha'i."
The song is used in an episode of 3rd Rock From the Sun in which Tommy has a dream about his choir teacher singing the song seductively to him while Sally, Dick, and Harry call to him from a boat a very long way out at sea.