Another rant on underrated music, but in a completely different genre
Everyone knows Santa Lucia, but, much to my sorrow, Bonagura and Cioffi’s little gem of a canzone, Scalinatella, seems criminally little-hummed outside Italy. The 228k views Murolo’s soulful rendition clocks on YouTube pale beside the millions awarded to, say, O Sarracino, and most of the comments seem to be from Italians. Yet few songs in the genre blend so well their unique cultural stamp with universally understandable yearning; few are so evocative of a fine-throated young guitarist wandering the coastal road, pouring his heart out into the Neapolitan night. Sounds hyperbolic, maybe, but give it a listen before you judge.
The melody is lovely on its own, but it’s worth knowing the lyrics, which, for a student of Italian, are easily enough to understand after a quick glance at the translation. The singer calls sadly for the girl he loves, who has fallen for a painter; he addresses the little flight of stairs (scalinatèlla) by the sea, asking them to lead him to her. The lyrics are full of long, soulfully open vowel sounds- perfect for echoing over sea-socked rocks- which, for me, reach their apex at the heartfelt imperatives cercammélla, trovammélla* (‘Search her out for me, find her for me.’). Note, by the way [nerdy point alert], the particular profusion of variations on the ending ella, which is flexible enough that the singer almost seems to pun; some refer to the Italian suffix for “little,” others are part of imperatives (e.g. cercammélla- search-for me-her) and others just feminine demonstratives (chella).
A final point of interest is that my favourite image in the poem has a rather Led Zeppelin echo, though with a very different aesthetic- Little flight of stairs/which goes up to the sky/or down to the sea.
*General point about canzoni: If you're learning Italian and trying to sing along to Neapolitan songs, try to be faithful to the consonant doubling (raddoppiamento sintattico) ubiquitous in Neapolitan (e.g. che mm'accide and cercammélla), also reflected in the Neapolitan Italian accent.
Comments