In The Land O' Yamo Yamo
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In the Land O' Yamo Yamo is a
World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
song written in 1917.
Joe McCarthy Joseph Raymond McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death at age 48 in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the mo ...
wrote the lyrics and Fred Fisher composed the music. McCarthy & Fisher, Inc. produced the song in
New York, New York New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on New York Harbor, one of the world's largest natural harb ...
. On the cover of the sheet music is a man playing the guitar as a woman dances in the foreground. The lyrics describe a place that is not found on the map, but resembles "Old
Napoli Naples ( ; ; ) is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its province-level municipality is the thir ...
," referring to a city in
Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...
. "Yamo Yamo" is an English transliteration of the Neapolitan phrase "iammo, iammo", a dialectal reduction of "andiamo, andiamo" ("let's go, let's go") and the beginning of the chorus of the worldwide popular Italian song " Funiculì, Funiculà", which is mentioned in "Yamo Yamo"'s subtitle. "Yamo Yamo" is illustrated in the chorus as a place where the "good fellows are" and where "you can never hear them talk about the war." The song reached number two on the US song charts in May 1918.


References

1917 songs Songs of World War I Songs with lyrics by Joseph McCarthy (lyricist) {{1910s-song-stub