Funiculì funiculà

The song was written in 1880 to mark the opening of the funicular railway up Vesuvius: Peppino Turco, a journalist, supplied the words and Luigi Denza the music, and it was launched at the Piedigrotta festival in Naples that year. Ricordi sold a million copies of the sheet music within a year. Richard Strauss heard it on a trip to Italy, took it for a folk song and quoted it in Aus Italien, whereupon Denza sued and won a royalty for every performance. The funicular itself was destroyed by the eruption of 1944.