47 Ginger-Headed Sailors

Gaetano, Gaetano, Gaetano!

A dear friend, the playwright Gaetano Marangelli, wrote and produced several one-act plays as part of the “LOVE DRUNK” theater series at the Studio Lab of the Drama League of New York in the venerable art-deco telecommunications building at 32 6th Avenue in the late Twenty-Teens.

One of the plays, “Motion Sickness,” was a sly send-up of various theater and acting tropes, and featured two actors singing “47 Ginger-Headed Sailors,” an old English music hall song written by Leslie Sarony.

Gaetano allowed as how he had first heard the song in the TV show Jeeves and Wooster.

I promised that I would create my own version of the song, and here it is, Gaetano — years later (not that my friends and I can hold a candle to Hugh Laurie). I had a lot of help from G., O., and M. on this:

Gaetano’s most recent project appears to have been the production of his play FOUR STRANGERS at MARN ART + CULTURE HUB in Milwaukee. You can find him on Instagram — @gaetanomarangelli.

When G. and I spoke with him over Google Meet the other day, his burning question to G. was, “How has your being in touch with your Italian-ness changed over the course of your life?” G. is attempting to answer that question in a long-term writing project that I would like to see on Substack some day.

Thank you, Gaetano, for introducing me to this wacky (little bit bawdy) song.

And by the way, I sail and still consider myself a ginger.

jedislit, ca. 1967

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