To settle the matter once and for all - that I am not confusing dark eyes and two lovely black eyes, here is the first few notes of the chorus of two lovely black eyes in my idiosyncratic tonic sol fa:

ray-2-3,me,doh,me, doh-2-3,1-2-3

Happy?

A lot of Russians used to holiday in Italy during the 19th century. If you have ports, you have Russian sailors disembarking in Italy, and Italian sailors disembarking in Russia. I have seen "Over the Waves" listed as an "old Russian waltz". Again, I know nothing about the validity of that claim.

Music does travel. Possibly the most famous example is the American Civil War song "When Johnny Comes Marching Home." The Union officer who "wrote" it, whose name escapes me, said that he had heard an elderly Negro singing it. An Irish sergeant within earshot replied: "Well, he must have come from Dublin!"

Who knows? Maybe Charles Coburn did compose Two Lovely Black Eyes after all.