# C'è la luna mezzo mare
**C'è la luna mezzo mare** (Sicilian: *Cc'è la luna n menzu ô mari*, "There's the moon amid the sea") is a comic Sicilian song of worldwide popularity, traditionally styled as a brisk tarantella.
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| First recording | 1927, arranged and recorded by the Italian Book Company of New York from Sicilian sailor Paolo Citorello (sometimes spelled Citarella)[1](https://dosen.profillengkap.com/en/C%27%C3%A8_la_luna_mezzo_mare) |
| Copyright | An American court upheld the Italian Book Company's copyright in 1928[1](https://dosen.profillengkap.com/en/C%27%C3%A8_la_luna_mezzo_mare) |
| US chart hits | Rudy Vallée's "Oh! Ma-Ma!" (1938, No. 8); Lou Monte's "Lazy Mary" (1958, No. 12)[1](https://dosen.profillengkap.com/en/C%27%C3%A8_la_luna_mezzo_mare) |
| Screen and stadium | Wedding scene of *The Godfather* (1972); seventh-inning staple at New York Mets home games since the mid-1990s[1](https://dosen.profillengkap.com/en/C%27%C3%A8_la_luna_mezzo_mare) |
## The song and its lyrics
The lyrics center on a young woman wondering about marriage with a succession of tradesmen, including a butcher, fisherman, and fireman, which has kept the song popular at Italian wedding receptions.[1](https://dosen.profillengkap.com/en/C%27%C3%A8_la_luna_mezzo_mare) In the dialogue, the daughter tells her mother that the moon over the sea makes her long for a husband, and the mother answers by proposing candidates, each of a different trade: butcher, baker, shoemaker, farmer, carpenter, gardener, fisherman, policeman, and fireman, each parading his most typical attribute.[2](https://www.originals.be/en/originals/9104) The humor comes from the tools each man holds, which carry double meanings; the fishmonger holds a fish, the barber a razor, the carpenter a plane, and the fireman a pump, and each verse ends with the comic threat of what he might do with it if the fancy takes him.[3](https://lyricstranslate.com/en/ce-la-luna-mezzo-mare-ce-la-luna-mezzo-al-mare.html) A recurring refrain runs "Ohi mammà, me vogghiu marità" ("Oh mother, I want to get married").[4](https://www.canzonierepopolareitaliano.it/IMG/pdf/note-2.pdf)
## Origins
Related music and lyrics appeared as early as 1835, in the art song "La Danza" (tarantella napoletana) by [Gioachino Rossini](https://www.edgepedia.org/gioachino-rossini) and Carlo Pepoli. By 1871 in Italy, bawdier versions were circulating.[1](https://dosen.profillengkap.com/en/C%27%C3%A8_la_luna_mezzo_mare) Pepoli's text, "La Tarantola Napolitana", was published in his *Varie Canzoni Anacreontiche* (London, 1835), and Rossini's setting opens with the line "Già la luna è in mezzo al mare, mamma mia si salterà".[5](https://www.lieder.net/lieder/get_text.html?RF=1&TextId=12531) The song's author is unknown, and its music and lyrics are only partially traceable to that 1835 source.[6](https://carlomuccio.altervista.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Il_Siciliano.pdf)
In 1927, New York City's Italian Book Company arranged and recorded a version by the Sicilian sailor Paolo Citorello, and an American court upheld their copyright in 1928.[1](https://dosen.profillengkap.com/en/C%27%C3%A8_la_luna_mezzo_mare) According to the researcher Giuliana Fugazzotto, who has assembled a historical archive of more than 5,000 Italian emigration 78 rpm records, the text is a dialogue between a mother and a daughter seeking a husband, running through a long series of candidates of different trades: butcher, baker, shoemaker, gardener, and fishmonger.[7](https://lavocedinewyork.com/arts/musica/2015/10/24/la-canzone-dellemigrante-musica-degli-italiani-damerica/)
## Popularity and hit versions
In the years following its 1927 debut, the song has spread widely under varied titles and with words in English, Sicilian, and Neapolitan.[1](https://dosen.profillengkap.com/en/C%27%C3%A8_la_luna_mezzo_mare) Hit recordings in the United States include "Oh! Ma-Ma!" by [Rudy Vallée](https://www.edgepedia.org/rudy-vallee) (1938, which peaked at No. 8) and "Lazy Mary" by Lou Monte (1958, which peaked at No. 12).[1](https://dosen.profillengkap.com/en/C%27%C3%A8_la_luna_mezzo_mare) Although Monte's recording was at first kept off British broadcasts because of its suggestive double meanings, a fan survey led to it being performed during the [seventh-inning stretch](https://www.edgepedia.org/seventh-inning-stretch) before family crowds at nearly every Mets home game in New York from the mid-1990s onward.[1](https://dosen.profillengkap.com/en/C%27%C3%A8_la_luna_mezzo_mare) The song was also recorded in Poland in 1939, with lyrics by Jerzy Jurandot.[1](https://dosen.profillengkap.com/en/C%27%C3%A8_la_luna_mezzo_mare)
**A long recording history.** Notable recordings span nearly a century: Rosina Gioiosa's "Mi vogghiu maritari" (1928), Paolo Citorello's "Mamma a cu m'addari" (1929) and "Mi vulissi maritari" (1930), Rudy Vallée's "Oh! Ma-Ma! (The Butcher Boy)" (1938), the Trio Vocale Sorelle Lescano's "Ohi Ma-Ma!" (1940), [Dean Martin](https://www.edgepedia.org/dean-martin)'s "Luna mezzo mare" (1951, [Capitol Records](https://www.edgepedia.org/capitol-records)), Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians' "Oh! Ma-Ma" (1954), Lou Monte's "Lazy Mary (Luna mezz'o mare)" (1958), The Mills Brothers' "Oh! Ma-Ma!". The cover list compiled by Arnold Rypens adds the Andrews Sisters and [Glenn Miller](https://www.edgepedia.org/glenn-miller) (both 1938, as "Oh! Ma-Ma!"), Louis Prima's "Zuma Zuma Baca La" (1951), Pete Seeger's "C'e La Luna (The Butcher Boy)" (1967), and the cast of *The Godfather I* during the Sicilian wedding shots (1972).[2](https://www.originals.be/en/originals/9104) Vallée's 1938 recording credited the song to Vallée, Citorello, and Lew Brown, the writer of "Beer Barrel Polka" and "Life Is But A Bowl Of Cherries".[2](https://www.originals.be/en/originals/9104)
## Folk song or pop song
The song is usually attributed as a "Sicilian folk song", but its documented history complicates that label. The American folk singer [Pete Seeger](https://www.edgepedia.org/pete-seeger) performed an English version labeled "The Butcher Boy" on the 1967 "Rainbow Quest" TV series and commented that the song made the 1932 "American Hit Parade".[8](https://www.iitaly.org/node/34484) The folklorists Frances Malpezzi and William Clements, in their *Italian-American Folklore* (1992), report that "this almost infinitely expandable song was collected from Sicilians in Tampa, Florida, in the late 1930s", a reference found in Manuel Ramirez's "Italian Folklore from Tampa, Florida" (*Southern Folklore Quarterly* 5, June 1941, pp. 101-106); the writer Joey Skee observes that the Tampa Sicilians could well have adapted one of the commercial recordings from 1927, 1928, or 1930, or Vallée's 1938 hit.[8](https://www.iitaly.org/node/34484) On this reading, the song entered the Italian-American repertoire through mechanical reproduction, became an "Italian-American folk song" through vernacular performance and endless recordings, and ultimately returned to Italy as an example of "exportable Italianess".[8](https://www.iitaly.org/node/34484)
## Screen, stadium, and internet
The song's widest exposure came through film and television. It appears in the wedding reception scene of *The Godfather* (1972), where the guests sing it while Don Corleone conducts business.[9](https://languagehat.com/luna-mezzo-mare/) In the sitcom *Everybody Loves Raymond*, the cast sang the song in the episodes "Mia Famiglia" and "Italy".[1](https://dosen.profillengkap.com/en/C%27%C3%A8_la_luna_mezzo_mare) It was included in the 2010 video game *Mafia II* as part of the fictional radio station Empire Classic, and in early 2022 it was used in a popular TikTok trend in which creators showed things in their home that "just make sense" while making the stereotypical Italian pinched-fingers gesture (the "mano a borsa") to the beat of the song.[1](https://dosen.profillengkap.com/en/C%27%C3%A8_la_luna_mezzo_mare)
## References
1. [C'è la luna mezzo mare, Profillengkap](https://dosen.profillengkap.com/en/C%27%C3%A8_la_luna_mezzo_mare)
2. [The Originals by Arnold Rypens: LUNA MEZZO MARE](https://www.originals.be/en/originals/9104)
3. [Italian Folk, Cc'è la luna n menzu ô mari (Italian translation), LyricsTranslate](https://lyricstranslate.com/en/ce-la-luna-mezzo-mare-ce-la-luna-mezzo-al-mare.html)
4. [CPI, Note ai canti](https://www.canzonierepopolareitaliano.it/IMG/pdf/note-2.pdf)
5. [La Tarantola Napolitana / È la Luna in mezzo al mare, LiederNet Archive](https://www.lieder.net/lieder/get_text.html?RF=1&TextId=12531)
6. [Il Siciliano (PDF), Carlo Muccio](https://carlomuccio.altervista.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Il_Siciliano.pdf)
7. [La canzone dell'emigrante: musica degli italiani d'America, La Voce di New York](https://lavocedinewyork.com/arts/musica/2015/10/24/la-canzone-dellemigrante-musica-degli-italiani-damerica/)
8. ["C'è la luna": Anatomy of an Italian-American "Folk" Song, i-Italy (Joey Skee, 2008)](https://www.iitaly.org/node/34484)
9. [LUNA MEZZO MARE, languagehat.com](https://languagehat.com/luna-mezzo-mare/)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Music › Musical works and recordings › Compositions and songs › Folk, traditional, and blues-rooted songs*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license