When I was growing up, my grandmother used to sing a particular Sicilian song to us. I never knew exactly what it meant, but I knew enough Sicilian to know it had something to do with getting married.

I was thinking about it the other day, did some poking around online, and discovered that it’s a bawdy, even crude, song.

Fair warning: some linguistic experts believe Sicilian is more a language of its own than a dialect. Either way, if you know Italian, most of the words on the screen of the video won’t seem correct.

In the song, a mother is giving her daughter some marital advice. Rest assured, this is not the kind of advice I ever heard from my mother. Although it’s interesting to contemplate what that might have been like…

Here’s the song and a translation I found online that hits the high points of the lyric (or rather, the low ones, I should say).

If you saw the film, The Godfather, this song will be familiar.

A fun parlor game would be to count the number of times household items and food are used as verbs….

There’s a moon in the middle of the sea:
Mother I must get married
My daughter, who do I get for you?
Mother I leave it up to you.

If I give you the barber
He will come and he will go
But he’ll always hold his razor in his hands
If he likes the idea
He’ll razor you oh my daughter

My daughter, who do I get for you?
Mother, I leave it up to you

If I give you the carpenter
He will come and he will go
But he’ll always hold his plane in his hands
If he likes the idea
He’ll plane you oh my daughte

My daughter, who do I get for you?
Mother I leave it up to you

If I give you the shoemaker
He will come and he will go
But he’ll always hold his hammer in his hands
If he likes the idea
He’ll hammer you oh my daughter

My daughter, who do I get for you?
Mother, I leave it up to you

If I give you the farmer
He will come and he will go
But he’ll always hold his plough in his hands
If he likes the idea
He’ll plough you oh my daughter

My daughter, who do I get for you?
Mother, I leave it up to you

If I give you the butcher
He will come and he will go
But he’ll always hold his sausage in his hands
If he likes the idea
He’ll sausage you oh my daughter

My daughter, who do I get for you?
Mother, I leave it up to you

If I give you the fisherman
He will come and he will go
But he’ll always hold his fish in his hands
If he likes the idea
He’ll fish you oh my daughter

My daughter, who do I get for you?
Mother, I leave it up to you

If I give you the gardener
He will come and he will go
But he’ll always hold his cucumber in his hands
If he likes the idea
He’ll cucumber you oh my daughter