C'è la luna mezzo mare
song performed by The Andrews Sisters
"Cc'è la luna n menzu ô mari" (Sicilian for 'There's the moon amid the sea'), mostly known in the English-speaking world as "C'è la luna mezzo mare", "Luna mezz'o mare" and other similar titles, is a comic Sicilian song with worldwide popularity, traditionally styled as a brisk 68 tarantella. The song portrays a mother-daughter "coming of age" exchange consisting of various comic, and sometimes sexual, innuendos. It is frequently performed at Italian-American wedding receptions and other festive occasions. Hit versions have included "Oh! Ma-Ma! (The Butcher Boy)" by Rudy Vallée and "Lazy Mary (Luna Mezzo Mare)" by Lou Monte.
Origin
Related music and lyrics appeared as early as 1835, in the art song "La Danza" (tarantella napoletana) by Gioachino Rossini and Carlo Pepoli. By 1871 in Italy, bawdier versions were circulating. In 1927, New York City's Italian Book Company arranged and recorded a version by Sicilian sailor Paolo Citorello (sometimes spelled Citarella), and an American court upheld their copyright in 1928.
Popularity
Since the first recording in 1927, the song has proliferated with different titles and lyrics in English, Sicilian, and Neapolitan.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “C'è la luna mezzo mare” as song performed by The Andrews Sisters. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as song performed by The Andrews Sisters. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q22043564. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1835, 1871, 1927 and 1928.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “C'è la luna mezzo mare” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.