Neapolitan songs about red-haired women

“Neapolitan song” is a generic term for a traditional form of music sung in the Neapolitan language. Many of these songs are world-famous, because they were taken abroad by emigrants from Naples and southern Italy, roughly between 1880 and 1920. The music also was popularized abroad by performers such as Enrico Caruso, who took to singing the popular music of his native city as encores at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in the early 1900s. Caruso also recorded many of these songs, which subsequently became part of the standard repertoire for operatic tenors.

An important factor in defining what makes a Neapolitan song is the matter of language. All these songs are written and performed in the Neapolitan language. Although the music is sung by many non-Neapolitan singers, it is difficult to sing correctly without knowledge of the Neapolitan dialect, which is crucial in obtaining the correct inflection.

One of the most famous performers is Renato Carosone (1920 – 2001), one of the first post-war Italian artists (the other one being Domenico Modugno) who sold records and toured in the United States without singing in English. "Torero", "Tu vuò fà l'americano", "Pigliate 'na pastiglia", “Maruzzella” and "'O sarracino/Caravan petrol" were among his greatest hits.

In the 1999 film The Talented Mr Ripley, the song "Tu vuo’ fa’ l’americano" is performed by Jude Law and Matt Damon, along with Italian showman Fiorello.

 

 

Here's Renato Carosone's  “’O russo e ‘a rossa”.

 

The song is about a red-haired boy and a red-haired girl who live in two houses opposite each other. The girl watches the boy from the window and the boy watches the girl from the balcony, but they don’t dare to speak to each other, also because, at one point, the girl’s father and the boy’s mother appear… However, the song ends with a kiss.

 

Another important performer of the Neapolitan song was Roberto Murolo (1912 – 2003).

Here’s his song "‘A rossa"

 

In this song, the singer advises a friend of his to stop seeing the red-haired girl he’s dating, because she is a person who often goes from one man to another. He too (the singer) used to date her, but then she left him.

 

Another song about a red-haired woman is "Rossa malupina". In the Neapolitan dialect, malupina is a sort of diminutive/endearment of malpelo, evil hair. 

 

The singer says a rossa malupina cheated on him and he wonders if she had another love. Unfortunately the audio is not of great quality and I couldn’t understand the whole song.

 

The last one is "Rossa napulitana".

 

A brunette and a blonde were in love with a student, who came back to his hometown when the schools closed.  Eventually a “fiery” red-haired woman got him.

 

Since in Italy red-haired people are only a tiny minority of the overall population, it is surprising that Neapolitan songwriters wrote all these songs about red-haired women!