"Marina" is a 1959 Italian song by Italian-Belgian singer-songwriter Rocco Granata, his first international hit and best known song. Originally released in 1959 as the B-side of "Manuela", the B-side became more played than the A-side, and by 30 January "Marina" interrupted " Oh! Carol" by

Neil Sedaka Neil Sedaka (; born March 13, 1939) is an American singer, songwriter and pianist. Since his music career began in 1957, he has sold millions of records worldwide and has written or co-written over 500 songs for himself and other artists, collabo ...

for one week at the No.1 spot of Hitkrant's List of European number-one hits of 1960. The song sold millions of copies. It was #1 in Belgium, #31 in the US, and #1 in Germany, The Netherlands, Italy and Norway. It was the #2

jukebox A jukebox is a partially automated music-playing device, usually a coin-operated machine, that plays a user-selected song from a self-contained media library. Traditional jukeboxes contain records, compact discs, or digital files, and allow user ...

play of the whole year in Automaten-Markt's records after " Seemann" by

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Trivia

The song "Marina" was so popular in Belgium and the Netherlands that many parents named their baby daughters Marina. In the Netherlands, the number of born Marina's rose from 156 in 1958 (before the hit song), to 190 and 250 in 1959 and 1960: an increase of 22% in 1959 and again 32% the next year. In Italy, the number of born Marina's goes from 2984 in 1959 to 8294 in 1960, becoming the fifth most popular name in the country in that year. A (German) musical feature film entitled ''Marina'' (by

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) was released in 1960. In 1989, Granata commissioned a dance remix of "Marina" (by Rocco Granata & The Carnations), which again topped the Belgian charts as well as those of Italy and Germany. In 2013 his early life (and his musical career starting with the sudden success of the hit "Marina") was captured in a new biographical movie named ''

Marina A marina (from Spanish , Portuguese and Italian : "related to the sea") is a dock or basin with moorings and supplies for yachts and small boats. A marina differs from a port in that a marina does not handle large passenger ships or cargo ...

'', directed by

Stijn Coninx Stijn, Baron Coninx (born 21 February 1957) is a Belgian film director. Career He studied film directing at HRITCS (currently Ritcs, at Erasmus Hogeschool Brussel). Conicx made his debut as film director in 1987 with the comedy ''Hector (1987 ...

Charts

References

Belgian pop songs 1959 singles 1959 songs Belgian songs in Italian {{1950s-song-stub