Catherine wrote asking about an Italian song:
Ciao Buongiorno! Actually, I’m Greek so I’ll say Tikanis!
I was wondering if you can help me find the title of a song I heard in a commercial from concerned childrens advertisers. It shows a little boy being chased after by 3 little girls trying to kiss him. I know the song in the commercial is in Italian. I’m sorry for my bad spelling but I don’t know how this would be spelt in Italian but it sounds like the words to the song are Loulo filaccio tris dias a cacho fila fila macavo pintar. At least that’s what it sounds like to me.
Does it sound like something you’ve heard before?
If you visit this website http://www.cca-kids.ca/psas/active_living.html, scroll to the bottom, click on the one that says “The Chase”. You’ll see and hear the commercial.
If you know the song title. Please email me back. I would be so appreciative.
Kind regards,
Catherine
I asked Monique at Mama Lisa’s World en français if she could help with this song. Here’s what she wrote:
The song must be “Lungo filaccio, triste sartaccio”, but I couldn’t find anything about it on the internet. This is a proverb. Both words “filaccio” and “sartaccio” end in “accio” which is a pejorative augmentative case (indicating that it’s undesirable). It means long bad thread, sad (in the sense of bad) taylor. In French we have such a proverb that goes “longue aiguillée, mauvais ouvrier” which means that a good taylor /dressmaker knows that if you take too long a thread to sew, it’ll twist and make knots and you won’t often have any better solution than to cut the thread. In Italian, as in French and Occitan, the verb “filare”/”filer”/”filar” means to weave but also to run away. So there’s probably a play on words because of the two meanings of the verb if you consider it in the song and the video. The song is about weaving (or sewing?), it goes:
“Lungo filaccio,
triste sartaccio,
fila fila ma che vuoi filar…?
è duro ma non puoi filar…
ho filato giorno e notte..
giacchetti, pantaloni…
gonellone. pura seta…”English Translation:
Long bad thread,
Sad bad taylor, weave, weave
But what would you weave…
It’s hard but I can’t weave…
I’ve woven day and night…
Jackets, trousers…
Long skirts… pure silk…”That’s all that I could catch.
Thanks for your help Monique! If anyone can help with the rest of this song, please let us know about it in the comments below.
Thanks!
Mama Lisa
This article was posted on Saturday, December 27th, 2008 at 1:43 pm and is filed under Children's Songs, Countries & Cultures, Italian, Italian Children's Songs, Italy, Languages, Mama Lisa, Questions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
7 Responses to “Question about an Italian Song about Weaving”
Leave a Reply
December 28th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Catherine wrote:
Gratzi Gratzi!
Thank you so much for doing that research. I really appreciate it. I will use that information to keep searching for song cuz it’s such a cute song. And yes it is a cute commercial. It’s a public service announcement from concerned children’s advertisers encouraging children to lead a more active lifestyle.
Thank you again so very much. I will let you know if I find it.
And later added…
Hello Lisa:
I typed in the info into google and I found the full song at this website.
It’s called Lungo Filaccio Track 14 composed by Roberto Cardinali published by Hudson
Thank you again so very much for your kind help.
Catherine
Glad we could help! Thanks for keeping us updated Catherine. -Mama Lisa
January 15th, 2010 at 1:30 pm
I FOUND IT :-D …god bless google.
http://www.dewolfe.co.uk/musicsearch/track_detail.php?primaryid=20760
February 24th, 2010 at 8:59 am
The other thing that makes this song so cute is that filare also means to run away. And the question, “ma che vuoi fila?” has more to do with love than weaving! When the tailor doesn’t want to run anymore, or can’t run anymore, it’s all over!!
Beautiful!!
September 1st, 2010 at 3:03 am
Hi, The song in question is Fila, Fila, Lungo Filaccio is the other name for it. One of the nicest cutest songs. There isn’t very much information out on google about Roberto Cardinali.
January 11th, 2011 at 5:18 pm
Hey The song is called Fila Fila, you can find it on itunes if you search by artist “Roberto Cardinali ”
:)
June 5th, 2013 at 6:51 pm
Does anyone know what year this song came out?
July 19th, 2014 at 4:23 am
Hello ! I loved this commercial as a child as well..
I’m fluent in Italian but gad a hard time making out some of the words… But this is the exact order of words in the song :
Lungo filaccio,
triste sartaccio,
fila fila me che vuoi filar senza punta l’ago non puo andar troppo filo te l’ha fatto far ed ora non puoi piu’ filar.
ho filato giorno e notte con
giacchetti, pantaloni sotto veste
gonellone pura seta e de colte
hai attaccato dei bottoni sotto sopra dentro fuori punto croce per i preti ora non puoi piu’ filalalalalala
fila fila me che vuoi filar senza punta l’ago non puo andar troppo filo te l’ha fatto far ed ora non puoi piu’ filar. (Repeat)
hai vestito di famosi di grandi personalita’ con inchini e riverenze la piu’ bella nobilta’
ti hanno fatto cavaliere hai milioni in quantita’ le tue foto nei giornali ma ora non puoi piu’ filar.
Lungo filaccio,
triste sartaccio,
fila fila me che vuoi filar senza punta l’ago non puo andar troppo filo te l’ha fatto far ed ora non puoi piu’ filar.
Lungo filaccio,
triste sartaccio (3x)
Hope this helps!