Oh, Ma-ma, oh get that man for me!
Oh, Ma-ma, how happy I would be;
Tra, la, la, and cheery-beery be
If I ever marry it's the butcher boy for me!
I wonder what he had in his hand?! Lol...
Remember, Eh, Cumpari? That one was really hard to follow! 🎶🎹🎷🎸🎺🎻🎤 bee dee-dee-dee, dee-dee-dee!😀
Hell, I'm old enough to remember Julius LaRosa singing it on the Arthur Godfrey show on black & white television. As I recall, it's a song about lots of different musical instruments and how they sound, la violina, il saxofona,etc.
Oh, Ma-ma, oh get that man for me!
Oh, Ma-ma, how happy I would be;
Tra, la, la, and cheery-beery be
If I ever marry it's the butcher boy for me!
Adorable! I had never heard that version! There are lots of versions of that song. The original, I think, was Ce La Luna Mezz'o Mare, and the lyrics are a young woman asking her mother who she should marry, and the mother suggests all the various men: the fisherman always has a fish in his hand, the hunter always has his gun in his hand, etc. The Lazy Mary verson appears to be a take-off on that old song.
I don't have the same childhood memories as you of Italian weddings because I came to live with Italians in America and Italian-Americans, and started to learn the language and customs, as a young woman... around the time the Godfather movies came out. They are a masterpiece of literature. I have the boxed set.
I was "adopted" by an Italian family back then, and know them now into the 4th generation. There is an Italian-American writer whose name escapes me at the moment who wrote about growing up the child of immigrants in New York state. He wrote this about Italians being friends with "i 'mericani": "They won't love you as much as their own family—just enough to make your family seem like cold fish for the rest of your natuaral life." That was my experience exactly, and what a Godsend. I ran into that writer at an Italian-themed reception one time (decades ago), and quoted back the line to him and said how much it overwhelmed me to read it, and he didn't even remember writing it. It was just such a natural part of his existence...