Bella ciao

Polka
Italy

Publication: Florent, October 12, 2016

This melody sound like the first part of the klezmer tune Koilen (or Dus zekelen Koilen), recorded on a 78rpm by Mishka Ziganoff, New York, 1919.
The “mondina” version, sung by Giovanna Daffini on the 33rpm Le canzoni di Bella ciao (1964) is about the “mondine”: women working in the rice fields. She said she learned this tune before world war two.
Vasco Scansani said that he wrote the well-known words of Bella Ciao in 1951.

Illustration: Harold Sichel (1881-1948).