Six Months in a Leaky Boat/Ono Marama Takerehāia

That metaphor was both related to the actual experience of the European getting on a horrible, smelly, leaky boat and travelling all this distance, but it also was definitely to do with coming through a hard time...

– Tim Finn is asked to explain the central metaphor of 'Six Months in a Leaky Boat', on his Waitata Anthems episode

The song was born from an all boys band and it was a very male industry at the time. I knew I just wanted that female spirit. It just brought it so much to life in a new way.

– Tim Finn on collaborating with Māori wahine for a new recording of 'Six Months In a Leaky Boat', in his episode of Waiata Anthems

As a translator the most important thing to me is to honour the original lyric, to honour the original composition to ensure the artist is happy with what I’m doing because at the end of the day, this song is Tim’s waiata.

– Translator Hana Mereraiha Skerrett-White on working with Tim Finn, Stuff, 25 August 2022

I don't think I've ever written a song quite like it, where it sort of cut through different time periods of my life. So I was able to talk about myself as a very young boy, vowing with my best friend Chris Ryder, almost a blood oath really that we would sail around the world together. Didn't happen, but we meant it at the time. And so that became a place of imagination for me, more than a real place...

– Tim Finn on the origins of 'Six Months in a Leaky Boat', in series two, episode five of Waiata Anthems

In the original recording of course I mispronounced Aotearoa, like a lot of Pākehā did at the time. I was asked to come in on this project Waiata Anthems, and it really excited me because I'd been wanting to do this little correction for many years, and then to also have a full translation...it was great; it was great timing.

– Tim Finn on grabbing the chance to reinvent his song in te reo, Waitata Anthems, series two, episode five