It took us some time to discover that Nisa was a nom de plume for Nicola Salerno (1910-1969), a lyricist born in Naples. ‘Maria la O’ and ‘Primo Amore’, two songs illustrated by Nisa (s.d.) ‘Yava Nera’ and ‘Canta Bandoneon’, illustrated by Nisa (19) Photo arrangements by Nisa for the film music songs ‘ Torna, Piccina!‘ (from the 1936 film ‘Vivere’) and ‘ Son Come Tu mi Vuoi‘ (from the 1934 film ‘Il Caso Haller’).
Our collection holds a dozen or so Nisa covers, mostly in the typical Italian art-deco style of the Thirties. for the publishers Edizioni Curci and Bixio). Nisa was a talented illustrator of children’s books and designer of sheet music covers (a.o. An Italian version of the ‘ Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay‘ world hit (Edizione Curci, 1933). Un gran casino, diciamolo.‘ Taratapunt-ti-e, Storia d’un valzer’ (illustrated by Nisa). I’m Swiss, actually, ok, the whole Gino adventure has been a big, lucky mess. I myself am NOT from Naples, nor have I ever been there. Sort of a second-generation Italian, Mafioso style. I got it from Weird Al, actually: in “La Lasagna”, his parody of “La Bamba”, he sings “Capish paisà, capish paisà?”=”do you understand, mate?”, but I never heard it anywhere else. Oh, and “Capisc'”: I’m not sure it’s a real word. The grammar in that sentence is completely borked, and SO MUCH satisfying. To “schifare” something is a, uhm, proactive version of “being disgusted by”: “Ti schifo e ti sputo”, literally: I disgust you and I spit you, meaning “I find you disgusting and I spit on you”. Usually you’d say “mi schifa” as a colloquial version of “mi fa schifo”, “it does/provokes me disgust”=”it disgusts me”. There isn’t a real translation for “schifare” in this meaning. “Skif'”, with a K? The right spelling is “schif'”, from “schifare”, which in turn comes from “schifo”, disgust. The real word for a turban is “tammuriell'”, and it was “too” Neapolitan for the rest of Italy, so we made up a word. It’s probably easier to understand by listening than by reading the subtitles – I’m pretty sure some words aren’t spelled like that. Which is pretty incredible a feat for web contents made in Italy (/Switzerland) in 2001.Īnd yes, it’s “Neapolitan”-ish, although Northern Italians shouldn’t have any problems understanding it. It got an estimated 5+ millions downloads in a time when there were no Youtube, no social networks and no search engines, just by word of mouth. The written lyrics are somewhat wrong, just a few words here and there I guess this was an unpolished version and that it was redone a couple weeks later, when it became a meme. Not my “true” voice, mind you: it’s pitched up a few tones. Oh, btw: I’m a language nerd, the singer in this parody, and the Official Singing Voice for Gino The Chicken. I can’t believe I’m stumbling on this 18 years after the “fact” – and that somebody would still listen to this in 2012. Will anybody ever read this? Oh well, whatever. Understand, Osama, you want to be a Taleban Tu vuo’ fa ‘o talebano, talebano, talebano,
You Want to Be a Taliban Tienni la barba longa chiu’ d’un metro,
Today a reader comment on my translation of Tu Vuo’ Fa’ L’Americano directed me to YouTube, where I ran across Gino’s version of the song, directed at Osama bin Laden:
“Gino the Chicken” was a phenomenon in Italy a few years ago.
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