Bella Ciao

"Oh my gosh, I know this song!" I interrupted Heid and Mary at breakfast yesterday. I had been enjoying the eclectic playlist as we sat in the sunny dining room, identifying the Gypsy Kings and James Taylor playing quietly over the clink of tableware and the murmur of conversations at the tables around us.

The summer I was 18, I worked as a counselor at a summer school in England. A few programs were going on that summer: a high school drama camp, a couple of sports camps, and an intensive language program for English learners in grades 3-12. As the youngest member of the staff, I was the utility person, filling in and supporting other counselors and teachers as needed. I was also a dorm resident for the 10 high-school-aged girls. 

We were only in session for five weeks, but like any intense, residential situation when you're that age, we shared a lot of memorable experiences. The song that I heard playing at breakfast transported me to the center bench seat of a VW van on its way to Wales. We were going to hike Mt. Snowden, and one of the girls, Manuela, was telling us the story of her grandfather, who was a partisan in Italy during WWII. "There is a song we always sing when we hike with him," she said, "that was the song of the partisans."

And she began to sing the very catchy folksong, Bella Ciao. We all learned the first two verses, and we sang them at the top of our lungs up and down the mountain, as well as at dinner, and any other time it occurred to one of us to start for the rest of the summer. The version I heard yesterday was by the American cross-genre orchestra, Pink Martini, and the Italian lyrics came flooding back to me, so I sang along. 

Una mattina mi son svegliato
O bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao
Una mattina mi son svegliato
Eo ho trovato l'invasor 

One morning I woke up
O bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao
One morning I woke up
And I found the invader

O partigiano porta mi via
O bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao
O partigiano porta mi via
Che mi sento di morir

Oh partisan, carry me away,
O bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao
Oh partisan, carry me away,
For I feel I'm dying