'O sole mio

The story

"'O sole mio" is a Neapolitan song written in 1898. Its words, in the Neapolitan language, are by Giovanni Capurro; the music is by Eduardo di Capua (1865–1917) and Alfredo Mazzucchi (1878–1972). The title means "my sun" or "my sunshine".

For nearly 75 years after it was published, the music was credited to di Capua alone. The traditional account had him compose it in April 1898 in Odessa, while he was touring with his father's band. In fact the melody was worked up from one of 23 that he had bought from Mazzucchi the year before. In November 1972, shortly after her father's death, Mazzucchi's daughter lodged a declaration with Italy's Office of Literary, Artistic and Scientific Property, asking that he be recognised as co-composer of 18 of di Capua's songs, "'O sole mio" among them. In October 2002 Maria Alvau, a judge in Turin, upheld it: the songs contained melodies Mazzucchi had composed and sold to di Capua in June 1897, with written permission to use them freely. As a result, the song had not yet entered the public domain in the countries of the Berne Convention, as it would have done in Italy had di Capua been its only composer.

The words have been translated into other languages. Charles W. Harrison recorded the first English version in 1915, and in 1921 William E. Booth-Clibborn set a hymn, "Down from His Glory", to the tune. In 1949 Tony Martin recorded "There's No Tomorrow", new English words by Al Hoffman, Leo Corday and Leon Carr on the same melody. About ten years later Elvis Presley, then serving with the US Army in West Germany, heard that record; after his discharge he asked for words of his own, which Aaron Schroeder and Wally Gold wrote as "It's Now or Never", a worldwide hit. In concerts of the mid-1970s Presley explained where the song came from and had Sherrill Nielsen sing part of the Neapolitan original first.

The song has been recorded by many singers, among them Enrico Caruso, Beniamino Gigli, Rosa Ponselle, Mario Lanza, Luciano Pavarotti and Andrea Bocelli; Pavarotti's performance won the 1980 Grammy Award for Best Classical Vocal Performance. At the opening ceremony of the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp it was played in place of the Italian national anthem, whose sheet music had not reached the band. In Britain in the 1980s its melody carried the jingle of a series of television advertisements for Cornetto ice cream.

What it says

A Neapolitan love song built around the image named in its title, the singer's own sun.

The words