Guaglione

Author: Nisa (lyrics) – Giuseppe Fanciulli (music)

Original performers: Aurelio Fierro and Grazia Gresi

Winner of the 1956 Naples Festival, the song stands out among the gems of the parody tradition. Fierro‘s version was considered the authentic one, and soared into the charts for six weeks, becoming the second best-selling song of the year.

Its success inspired a film of the same name with Claudio Villa (for whom the song was originally intended, but the record company refused) singing it; in 1958 he made a sequel (Non sono più guaglione - I'm not a boy anymore). In short, Guaglione became an international standard: in France, debuted by Dalida with the title Bambino; in the United States, where Dean Martin recorded it as The Man Who Plays the Mandolino; in Denmark, Sweden, Austria, where it was debuted by Udo Jürgens (Peppino) and above all in Finland where it broke the record for the number of recordings (Polka varjoselta kujalta) between 1957 and 2010.

In 1958, Perez Prado made an instrumental version of it with a mambo rhythm, which became very popular in 1995 thanks to an advertisement: first place in Ireland and second in England. Since then, its success as a theme for a videogame and a TV show have made it one of Disney's biggest commercial successes.