Family History through Song: Abbatte i manine

My grandfather, Frank Gatto, passed away on October 7, 2015. He was 88. My son was 17 months old. I'll be forever grateful that they had the chance to know each other.

Grandpa was a bit of a one-trick pony when it came to babies. He sang the same Italian clapping song, to every baby, every time he saw them.

These days, whenever my son sees a picture of his "Pop," he starts clapping his hands. I love that there's such a physical way for my not-quite-verbal toddler to tell us he remembers. (Of course, I had to run out of the wake in tears the first time he did it at the funeral home.)

As far as we could tell, the song was mostly nonsense. After spending 8 years studying Italian and a semester abroad, I could pick out a few words here or there, but couldn't make sense of the whole thing. Neither could any of my other relatives, no matter how much Italian they'd studied. (Grandpa was the last native speaker in our family, but spoke a Brooklyn-ized dialect.) Grandpa translated the lyrics as "Clap your hands/Daddy's coming home/He's going to bring you candy."

As best I could pick out, Grandpa's song went like this:

Abbate i manine
Cadame ne tata
Annuzhe a lica bette
A do e da li da!

Clearly, that translates to:

Clap your little hands
Something Something [papa?]
Something Something Something
Something Something Something

But in the past month, as we've spent a lot of time clapping hands in memory of Grandpa, I finally googled, and learned that there are apparently dozens of variations on this song sung in Italy. They typically mean pretty much what Grandpa claimed: "Clap your hands/Daddy's coming home/He's bringing candy/And [Baby's name] is going to eat it all!"

The last line, where you sub in the child's name, appeared consistently in the versions I found online but is missing from Grandpa's. This may explain why the last line of Grandpa's song sounds so particularly nonsensical.

The online version that I liked the best came from Yahoo Answers user Antony96, who says that he is from Bari (as is my family) and gives the lyrics to the song he knows as:

abbatte i manine
ka vène papé
annushe i bonbon
è tutte è tutte è tutte ( u nome d'a menénne) l'ò mangé!!

It's the closest version I've found to my grandfather's version. The second line starts with "ka," which isn't, to my knowledge, an Italian word, but which is what I always heard when Grandpa sang. Same goes for "annushe," a word I'm not familiar with but which my grandfather clearly sang. It is, somehow, incredibly validating to know that all these years, we were wrong when we thought Grandpa was making up or mangling the words.

A few of my cousins have talked about trying to learn how the song "really" goes, but I will proudly sing it the way I always knew it, and I will teach it to any future kids and grandkids I have that way, too.

Grandpa wasn't singing nonsense, he was singing dialect.

Mother Malone: Family History through Song

When it comes to music, the two sides of my family couldn't be more different.

On the maternal side, I have a hearing-impaired grandfather who nonetheless taught himself to play the piano by ear; a songwriter for an uncle; and an up-and-coming singer for a cousin.

On the paternal side, I had a tone-deaf grandfather; a father who can't sing; and, well, that's about all that's worth mentioning.

And yet, when I conceived of a blog post talking about music and family history, it was the latter family I was thinking about. (Possibly this is because my musical skills are quite clearly inherited from the from the family that has none.)

Some of my most cherished childhood memories are of my dad singing lullabies to my sister and I each night before bed, and it's through these memories that I find some of the strongest connections to my grandmother, who died when I was too young to remember her well.

My dad's repertoire included standard lullabies, like "Hush, Little Baby." Other songs were show tunes. (I clearly remember that the visual I had for the line "Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow there'll be sun" involved someone with a large stack of money, betting only the bill at the very bottom.) Some were hymns, "Amazing Grace" being a favorite in honor of my sister's middle name. And then there's the song that sticks in my mind most clearly: "Mother Malone."

When I try to look this song up on the internet, every set of lyrics is slightly different, and none exactly match the version my dad sang to me, which his mother had sung to him, and which I will sing to my kids. Additionally, the melody in recordings I've found is a bit different from the one I know. I guess that's part of the beauty of a folk song: it's passed on through the generations. Maybe, sort of like DNA, it mutates a bit along the way, creating a unique signature that can identify your family. The version of the song that I learned growing up went like this:

Some boys when they go a-courtin'
They haven't the spunk of a mouse
They'll stand on the corner and whistle
Afraid to go into the house

But me I walk in with me swagger
As if the old place were me own
And I sit myself down with "Good evenin'"
"How are you, old Mother Malone?"

Then I kiss the old woman
And hug the old man
Give Johnny a shilling and shake hands with Dan
Fight for his sister
And do all I can
Do all I can
Then I walk out with me girl Mary-Ann

Have you ever discovered that a song - or a version of a song - is unique to your family? Where did it come from? How have you passed it on?


Disclosure: This post contains Amazon.com affiliate links. This means that if you choose to make a purchase from Amazon after clicking one of these links, I will receive a small portion of your purchase price as a commission. I personally make a point of starting my Amazon shopping through the affiliate links of bloggers and friends whenever possible, so that large corporations are not the only beneficiaries of my purchases, and encourage others to do the same, regardless of whether they use my affiliate links or another blogger's. Of course, since the links above are to my family's music, I encourage you even more strongly to support their efforts, and can guarantee that you won't be disappointed in your purchases!

Family Not-History

I'm breaking from our regularly scheduled programming to introduce my readers to my talented cousin, Gina Cimmelli, whose band, Gina's Picture Show, has just come out with a fantastic new song.




You can listen to it here, or head to http://ginacimmellimusic.bandcamp.com/ to download it for free! It's my understanding that the free download is a limited time offer, so you'd better get it now!

Shameless Plug

Not genealogy, but still family: My cousin, Gina, is an amazing musician. You can sample her band, Gina's Picture Show, at http://www.myspace.com/ginaspictureshow, or, I think, I can embed one of my favorites here through Lala (still figuring out exactly what this "Lala" is):

Call Mama - Gina Cimmelli

Don't they rock?!

St. Bernard's Annual Benefit

Quite the performer, actually, our Loretta Madigan. She seemed to do a lot of performing with the Rickert family. Here's the text of the article, from February 19, 1911, when the St. Bernard's Choir held their annual benefit performance:

Men and Women of St. Bernard's
Church Prepare for Show
On Tuesday evening, St. Bernard's R.
C. Church, Hicks and Rapelye streets,
of which the Rev. John M. Scheffel is
pastor, will hold its annual entertainment
and reception at the Kings County
Palace, 120 Schermerhorn street, under
the auspices of the St. Bernard choir,
for the benefit of the church. The evening
programme will be opened with a
"First Part Minstrel" with the entire
choir participating, as follows: Interlocutor,
Daniel Thompson; tambos, Miss
Hannah Todd, Joseph J. Rickert; bones,
Mrs. George Donovan, Daniel F, Sallows,
Michael Galvin, August A. Rickert,
James F. Ryan and Master G. Onken,
and Mrs. Frances Dilberger and
Mrs. August A. Rickert, soloists.
The chorus will be comprised of the
following: Joseph Dilberger, Frank J.
Fannon, William Baker, Peter F. Kestler,
Frank J. Rickert, George Kestler,
William J. Rickert, Frank Kestler, Adam
Wunner, the misses Lillian Harkens,
Amelia Heitzman, Clara Rickert, Lorretta
A. Madigan, Anna Rickert, Lillian
Sallows, Mary Gibbons, Josephine Lesinsky,
Margaret Barret. Immediately
following the minstrels , a specialty will
be rendered by Frank J. Rickert and
Miss Lorreta Madigan, Introducing vocal
and piano selections. The evening entertainment
will conclude with a one-act
farce entitled "Too Much Married,"
which will be enacted by a strong cast,
having as its concluding number, "Carmena,"
rendered by the choir. The production
is under the direction of Daniel
Thompson. assisted by Miss Anna
Kearon.

Apparently the Rickerts were quite the theatrical family. Besides Loretta and Joseph J, the show also included Frank J., Anna, Clara, William J., August A. and Mrs. August A., all Rickerts. I wonder if they were all brothers and sisters (besides Mrs. August, that is), or if they were cousins, if the girls might have been in-laws.

We can tell that Loretta and Joseph J. knew each other for at least 4 years before they were married in 1915. I also love the similarity in names between this production and the production of All the Comforts of Home that the St. Bernard players performed a few years later. The Dilbergers, the Rickerts, the Kestlers, Mary Gibbons, Adam Wunner, Michael Galvin - those are all among the names that show up in both articles. Imagine! They must have been friends!

Were they real people, these ancestors of ours?