Bella ciao

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"Bella ciao"
("Goodbye beautiful!")
Music by Traditional
Lyrics by Unknown
Language Italian
Music of Italy
Genres: Classical: Opera
Pop: Rock (Hardcore) - Hip hop - Folk - jazz - Progressive rock
History and Timeline
Awards Italian Music Awards
Charts Federation of the Italian Music Industry
Festivals Sanremo Festival - Umbria Jazz Festival - Ravello Festival - Festival dei Due Mondi - Festivalbar
Media Music media in Italy
National anthem Il Canto degli Italiani
Regional scenes
Aosta Valley - Abruzzo - Basilicata - Calabria - Campania - Emilia-Romagna - Florence - Friuli-Venezia Giulia - Genoa - Latium - Liguria - Lombardy - Marche - Milan - Molise - Naples - Piedmont - Puglia - Rome - Sardinia - Sicily - Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol - Tuscany - Umbria - Veneto - Venice
Related topics
Opera houses - Music conservatories - Terminology

"Bella ciao" is an Italian partisan song of World War II.

Contents

[edit] History

Bella Ciao is a song that was sung by the left anti-facist resistance movement in Italy comprised of anarchists, communists, socialists and other anti-facist partisans. The author of the lyrics is unknown, and the music seems to come from an earlier folk song sung by riceweeders in the Po Valley. Another interpretation has been given following the discovery in 2006 by Fausto Giovannardi of the CD "Klezmer - Yiddish swing music" including the melody "Koilen" played in 1919 by Mishka Ziganoff. [1]

[edit] International versions

The song has been recorded by various artists in many different languages including Italian, Russian, Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, Hungarian, English, Spanish, Finnish, Kabyle, German, Turkish, Japanese, Tagalog, Chinese, and Kurdish.

The song is sung in a slightly different manner by Norwegian socialists. This Norwegian version describes the oppression of workers on the rice fields, and speaks of the freedom to come.

Bella Ciao is the end theme song for the Yugoslav WWII movie Most (The Bridge, The Savage Bridge).

A rewritten version of the song can be heard on Chumbawamba's acoustic album "A Singsong and a Scrap".

Another version of the song was recorded by the punk rock band Dog Faced Hermans [1] on the album "Every Day Time Bomb."

[edit] Lyrics

Note: rhymes could not be rendered in English, and several short Italian words (bella, ciao) translate into long English words (beautiful, goodbye), so that the result is rather "heavier" than the original version. Also, there are several verses which differ in the Italian version, i.e. different ways to sing those verses. Those are written in brackets.

Italian lyrics
Una mattina mi son svegliato,
o bella, ciao! bella, ciao! bella, ciao, ciao, ciao!
Una mattina mi son svegliato,
e ho trovato l'invasor.
O partigiano, portami via,
o bella, ciao! bella, ciao! bella, ciao, ciao, ciao!
O partigiano, portami via,
ché mi sento di morir.
E se io muoio da partigiano,
(E se io muoio su la montagna)
o bella, ciao! bella, ciao! bella, ciao, ciao, ciao!
E se io muoio da partigiano,
(E se io muoio su la montagna)
tu mi devi seppellir'.
E seppellire lassù in montagna,
(E tu mi devi sepellire)
o bella, ciao! bella, ciao! bella, ciao, ciao, ciao!
E seppellire lassù in montagna,
(E tu mi devi sepellire)
sotto l'ombra di un bel fior.
Tutte le genti che passeranno,
(E tutti quelli che passeranno)
o bella, ciao! bella, ciao! bella, ciao, ciao, ciao!
Tutte le genti che passeranno,
(E tutti quelli che passeranno)
Mi diranno «Che bel fior!»
(E poi diranno «Che bel fior!»)
«È questo il fiore del partigiano»,
(E questo é il fiore del partigiano)
o bella, ciao! bella, ciao! bella, ciao, ciao, ciao!
«È questo il fiore del partigiano,
(E questo é il fiore del partigiano)
morto per la libertà!»
English translation
One morning I awakened
Oh Goodbye beautiful, Goodbye beautiful, Goodbye beautiful! Bye! Bye!
One morning I awakened
And I found the invader
Oh partisan carry me away
Oh Goodbye beautiful, Goodbye beautiful, Goodbye beautiful! Bye! Bye!
Oh partisan carry me away
Because I feel death approaching
And if I die as a partisan
(And if I die on the mountain)
Oh Goodbye beautiful, Goodbye beautiful, Goodbye beautiful! Bye! Bye!
And if I die as a partisan
(And if I die on the mountain)
Then you must bury me
Bury me up in the mountain
(And you have to bury me)
Oh Goodbye beautiful, Goodbye beautiful, Goodbye beautiful! Bye! Bye!
Bury me up in the mountain
(And you have to bury me)
Under the shade of a beautiful flower
And the people who shall pass
(And all those who shall pass)
Oh Goodbye beautiful, Goodbye beautiful, Goodbye beautiful! Bye! Bye!
And the people who shall pass
(And all those who shall pass)
Will tell me: "what a beautiful flower"
(And they will say: "what a beautiful flower")
This is the flower of the partisan
(And this is the flower of the partisan)
Oh Goodbye beautiful, Goodbye beautiful, Goodbye beautiful! Bye! Bye!
This is the flower of the partisan
(And this is the flower of the partisan)
Who died for freedom

[edit] Alternate translation

Alternate, less literal and more "singable" translation - which also makes explicit some aspects that are left implicit in the Italian text:

SWEETHEART GOODBYE
One morning when I awakened
Sweetheart goodbye, oh goodbye, oh goodbye-bye-bye!
One morning when I awakened
I found invaders all around
Oh partisan, come take me with you
Sweetheart goodbye, oh goodbye, oh goodbye-bye-bye!
Oh partisan, come take me with you
Because I feel ready to die
If I die fighting as a partisan
Sweetheart goodbye, oh goodbye, oh goodbye-bye-bye!
If I die fighting as a partisan
You must come and bury me
Bury me there, up in the mountains
Sweetheart goodbye, oh goodbye, oh goodbye-bye-bye!
Bury me there, up in the mountains
Shade my grave with a lovely flower
So all the people who pass that way
Sweetheart goodbye, oh goodbye, oh goodbye-bye-bye!
So all the people who pass that way
Will say "Oh see that lovely flower! - "
"Ah that's the flower of the partisan fighter - "
Sweetheart goodbye, oh goodbye, oh goodbye-bye-bye!
"Ah that's the flower of the partisan fighter
who died for freedom's sake!"

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Da ballata yiddish a inno partigiano il lungo viaggio di Bella ciao.

[edit] External links