The Lanterna, the lighthouse of Genoa
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Çent’anni de «Ma se ghe penso»

A century of “Ma se ghe penso”

A 1925 emigration song the whole city still knows by heart.

“Ma se ghe penso” (1925, words and music by Mario Cappello, melody later reworked by Attilio Margutti) tells of a Genoese emigrant who has made his fortune in Latin America and decides to go home. There were plenty of Genoese songs in those years; this is the one that stuck more than any others.

For a century it has been sung in the stadium, by choirs, at the city’s celebrations and its funerals, in Genoa and in the Genoese communities scattered across the world. For many, it is the first text learned in our language.

Bibliography

  1. Fiorenzo Toso, La letteratura ligure in genovese e nei dialetti locali. Profilo storico e antologia, vol. VII, Il Novecento, Le Mani, Recco 2009, pp. 49–50.
  2. Fiorenzo Toso e Giustina Olgiati (a cura di), Il genovese. Storia di una lingua, Sagep, Genova 2017, p. 141.
  3. Mina performs “Ma se ghe penso” (YouTube).
  4. Ricchi e Poveri perform “Ma se ghe penso” (YouTube).
  5. Bruno Lauzi performs “Ma se ghe penso” (Spotify).

Image: AlexSaccoPhoto, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0