“Bali Ha’i” is an invitation to an unreachable paradise—David Cassidy singing not about a place on a map, but the aching hope that somewhere, beyond the noise, life might finally feel gentle.
David Cassidy recorded “Bali Ha’i” as an album track on Dreams Are Nuthin’ More Than Wishes (released October 1973 on Bell Records, produced by Rick Jarrard). In the UK, that album became a genuine peak-era statement—reaching No. 1 on the UK Albums Chart (its week at the summit was 15 December 1973). It’s important to say plainly: “Bali Ha’i” itself wasn’t pushed as a chart single. Its “ranking” is more intimate than that—its place inside a No. 1 album, and its role as a quiet clue to what Cassidy wanted to be when the screaming stopped.
Because “Bali Ha’i” is not a typical pop-star choice. The song comes from Rodgers & Hammerstein’s 1949 musical South Pacific—a show tune originally sung by Bloody Mary as she tempts Lt. Joe Cable with the promise of a mysterious, off-limits island. In the story, Bali Ha’i is visible on the horizon, almost mythic: close enough to haunt you, distant enough to stay pure. It’s a song about longing dressed up as geography, about a place that “calls” to you when the place you’re standing in no longer feels like home.
That’s exactly why Cassidy’s version can feel so haunting—especially when you remember what his life looked like in 1973. Fame, at that altitude, can be its own kind of island: crowds everywhere, yet privacy nowhere; adoration that feels loud but strangely impersonal. On Dreams Are Nuthin’ More Than Wishes, Cassidy leaned into a more reflective, curated identity, even using the album’s fold-out packaging and personal notes to explain why certain songs mattered to him. And “Bali Ha’i”—a brief track (about 2:34) tucked mid-sequence—plays like a private confession slipped between more familiar pop comforts. It suggests a young star looking beyond the obvious songbook, reaching for something older and more spacious.
What Cassidy brings to “Bali Ha’i” is a particular kind of softness: not theatrical belting, but a gentle, almost careful persuasion. He doesn’t sing it like a grand Broadway seduction. He sings it like someone who needs the idea to be true. The island becomes less a fantasy of pleasure and more a fantasy of relief—somewhere the soul could unclench. That’s the emotional trick of the performance: you can hear the yearning without hearing ego. His voice isn’t saying “look at me”; it’s saying “take me away,” even if only for the length of a song.
And then, in 1974, Cassidy returned to it on stage, folding it into the “Bali Ha’i / Mae” medley on his live album Cassidy Live! (released 1974), which reached No. 9 on the UK album chart. That live pairing is revealing: “Mae” is intimate and personal, “Bali Ha’i” is distant and dreamlike—put them together and you get a portrait of a heart split between wanting to be known and wanting to disappear.
The deeper meaning of “Bali Ha’i”—whether in the theater or in Cassidy’s hands—has always been the same enduring human ache: the belief that somewhere else, life might finally make sense. Not in a childish way, but in the weary way people dream when they’ve been brave for too long. Cassidy’s version doesn’t ask you to believe in paradise as a postcard. It asks you to recognize paradise as a feeling: quiet, clean, unjudged—an imagined shoreline where the noise can’t follow.
So if you play David Cassidy’s “Bali Ha’i” now, don’t listen for a “hit.” Listen for the pause behind the spotlight. It’s the sound of a young man, already famous enough to be trapped by his own legend, choosing an old song about a faraway island—and, for a moment, letting you hear what he longed for most: not more applause, but a horizon.