Songs and Lyrics (Lehrer)/Hey, Joe
Author’s note:
The Gallery (1947) was a highly successful novel by John Horne Burns, based on his experiences in the American Army of Occupation in Naples in 1944.
In 1951 I and a fellow graduate student at Harvard, Eloise Knapp, briefly considered writing a musical based on the book. The project was soon abandoned. This is one of the few surviving fragments of the prospective score. It was intended to be sung by a group of scugnizzi (Neapolitan street urchins) to an Americn soldier, while a nearby Neapolitan singer sings "O Sole Mio".
HEY, JOE!
(The two parts are to be sung simultaneously)
| SCUGNIZZI: | NEAPOLITAN SINGER:[1] |
| Hey, Joe! | Ma n’atu sole |
| You wanna meet my sister? | Cchiù bello oi nè |
| Hey, Joe! | O’ sole mio |
| She’s only seventeen. | Sta ‘nfronte a te |
| Hey, Joe! | ‘O sole |
| You oughta meet my sister, | ‘O sole mio |
| Sta ‘nfronte a te | |
| The prettiest piece-a tail you ever seen. | Sta ‘nfronte a te |
| (alt: little thing) | |
| Whaddaya say?
Hey, Joe! Whaddaya say? Hey, Joe! etc. (fading out as they exit) |
- ↑ “O Sole mio” was written in 1898 by Giovanni Capurro (lyrics) and Eduardo di Capua and Alfredo Mazzucchi (music).