PARODY-LYRICS
MUSICAL UNDERPINNINGS: "Funiculì, Funiculà", a song by Italian composer Luigi Denza, 1880, to honour the inauguration of the funicular railway taking tourists up Mt. Vesuvius.
PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, February 2013. The lyrics were initially posted at the online parody website "AmIRight.com", with a few subsequent re-edits, including a change of the song's title.
To return to the corresponding post on "Daily Illustrated Nonsense" (or to review the lyrics without the chord-chart indications) click HERE.
EXPLANATION: Readers might note that in Italian, and presumably in Neapolitan, lì and là are casual terms for "here and there" (or possibly (in the context of funicular railways "up and down").
The curious reader is referred back to the extensive notes accompanying the lyrics for this "singable satire" on the Daily blog. Use the link above to instantly transport you there.
The fanciful existence of ukuleles in Europe in the 19th century is an anachronism; hence, the song was initially titled "Anacroní, Anacroná".
UKULELÍ, UKULELÁ
(to the tune of "Funiculi, Funicula")
PSEUDO-ORIGINAL SONG-LYRICS
(Click on any verse-slide in this presentation to enlarge it)
Admittedly, the Neapolitan lyrics of the original Denza-Turco song are difficult to vocalize, and are now a bit obscure for modern audiences. Two sets of lyrics have been developed that have been widely used with English-speaking audiences:
1) A British campfire-song type parody published by Fields and Hall in 1937 entitled "My High Silk Hat".
This spoof will be the basis of further discussion -- stay tuned.
2) "A Merry Life", by Edward Oxenford, a translator of librettos. Although this version became traditional in the English-speaking world in the late Victorian period, it bears little relationship to the story told in the original.
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