These days, Bella Ciao is widely known as a generic protest song, but did you know that it has its origins in the risaie (rice fields) of northern Italy?That’s right – it was first sung by the mondine (rice weeders) whose job was to weed the paddies to promote the growth of the young rice shoots. Carried out by women of a low social class, the work was gruelling due to the long days spent bent over under the scorching sun, knee-deep in water. To make matters worse, the pay was poor and the supervising padroni (bosses) often punished the workers if they spoke amongst themselves during working hours.It is therefore no surprise that many protest songs were born out of these excruciating work conditions. Bella Ciao, perhaps the most famous of them all, is thought to have been written in the early 19th century, though the earliest written version was recorded in Vercelli, Piedmont in 1906. The original mondine lyrics describe the horrific conditions, from insetti e le zanzare (insects and m...
