What is noticeably absent in the Australian Hawaiian music recordings of the 1930s and 40s is any sense of Australianness in the songs themselves. Local Hawaiian performers mostly performed material from the vast hapa-haole (Hawaiian music paired with English lyrics) repertoire coming out of the US. Hints of other Pacific islands did creep in, with songs like 'Fijian Farewell' and 'I’d Like to See Samoa of Samoa', but few Australian references appear.

That began to change by the late 1940s, when a more sophisticated postwar tourism industry was developing in Queensland. Flying boats began to bring holiday makers and both the airlines and the resorts were eager to promote Northern Queensland as a tourist destination. Wade and his band recorded 'Magnetic Island' in 1950.