Giorgia, after Sanremo: «Let’s look up to the sky»

The good news, as neuroscience proves, is that the mind is malleable.
Yes, it can change! It’s not like it’s usually claimed, that people don’t change! If one were to be born and end up the same, life would be meaningless.

How does she “work” on it?
It is a “mixture”: partly with analysis; partly with jogging (running along the cycle path of the Tiber, in a Rome of unreal silence, takes me away from brooding, from the hamster wheel). And, in part, with having returned to studying singing: based on the awareness – and serenity – of the breath, it is a form of meditation. In the end, it is a matter of “cleanliness”, and lightening and lightness are the key: we are used to facing situations with intensity, giving our all. Too much, too much! A depth that forces you to dig so deep that you get crushed. For what purpose? Let’s take Sanremo, for example.

“A shot of adrenaline”

Here, in fact: what prompted you to return to the competition when you had already earned the status of super guest?
‘Na mattata! The record company, Sony, insisted; Amadeus had the right, light approach: “What will it be? One more experience”. Revisiting the festival with today’s me was a way to test myself on that stage which has been an important appointment since the very beginning. With my 51 years of age, I said to myself: perhaps a jolt of adrenaline is healthy. I was “sitting down”.

How come?
After the lockdown I went down a lot in my artistic emotionality: I felt depressed, that’s it. When you have children you still have to march, show yourself active, but when I shut myself up in the room on the piano, some crying! I no longer knew where I was, what I had to do and if I still had to do, since the music has completely changed. And then, what to talk about? You could not pretend and not even underline: “We will all die”! We got it, okkeeeey, no need to remind… I finally unlocked myself! My first film experience helped a lot.

Debut on the big screen?
Yes, at the end of March! One day Rocco Papaleo popped up: “Would you like to shoot an ensemble film?”. “No, ‘ndo I go? I’m not able!”. He started the work of persuasion and, when I read the script, I found it in harmony with me: the character of Olga is me! She’s titled Forgot: Rocco, director and protagonist, is a piano tuner “out of tune” with respect to existence. When he gets a block in his back he meets me – a physiotherapist – who overwhelms him with a “pippone” listing the possible psychosomatic causes. I wish he had written another 100 pages on the subject, I know enough and I am convinced that some ailments are signals sent by the body. He helped me prepare, we met every day for three months. Upon arriving on set…

“Me and Emanuel”

A star was born.
Mhm, no. Outdoor scene in Salerno, with people calling us: me terrible, a goat. I go to Rocco: “I think we were wrong” (whispers). He: “And I know me too!” (laughs). “What are we doing?” I ask him. “Let’s try another one and decide”… Luckily something magical happened, I came to my senses.

It would seem that she has an imprint on self-whipping.
(laughs) Wow, it’s improved! I quit on many fronts, love included. I am now tolerant: go where you like, do what you like (she has been linked since 2004 to Emanuel Lo, dancer, choreographer and director, ed). Freedom, stop! 50 is an interesting experience, better than 20: you don’t care what people think of you (wonderful!) and you care what you think of yourself. You understood how it works, that there are few important things and it is useless to waste time repeating that there is no time. Might as well live it. I have less anxiety about looking perfect (ahho, if I’m wrong, amen!), although the body begins to be attracted by gravity.

Oh no, a forerunner like her can’t express herself like that! In 2014 she undressed in a video to send a message of body positivity ante litteram.
(smiles) In fact, in the mirror, after the first gasp (in this era, if you perceive yourself less beautiful, the older your instinct is to feel ashamed, as if you had stolen!), you recover and accept. You are aware of priorities: while I was preparing for Sanremo, Samuel’s high school had to be chosen and yes that was relevant.

“Daddy’s Smell”

Is your partner a modern dad? Collaborate?
Yes, he’s great! So many commitments – the three albums, the concerts – I was able to take them because he was there, who has almost been a mother since he has been a father. In 12 years Samuel has never slept without at least one of us. Emanuel has completely devoted himself to his son: sometimes I complain “And I ‘ndo sto? I’m here!” (laughing, he makes a gesture of waving his arms). However, I prefer it this way compared to the past, when the fathers only returned in the evening, tired. Mine, moreover, traveled for work: I remember putting my face in his closet to smell it. In short: in May I leave for the tour quite calmly.

Both the tour and the album are titled Blue¹.
“Blue” I finally chose, noting that in every new song there is a word that takes you to the sky. I kept telling myself: “Look up!”. We are used to looking down, but if we turn up for a moment we understand that there is more, that we don’t end here, that we are not just this body, this mind. Emotions – sometimes bastards: if they manage you, they ruin you – are the tool for finding a different point of view and from there improve a little bit, evolve.

On the album cover she appears as “Vitruvian woman”.
An idea by Maria Grazia Chiuri (artistic director for Dior of the women’s lines, ed), which I had asked to give birth to the concept of the cover. “I’ll put you between heaven and earth, in the center, but you’re even wearing the sky: the dress will have constellations” she explained. The firmament at night is not black, it is deep blue: you have to “jump” to grasp its essence, you don’t have to observe it with your eyes, you have to “feel” it… I believe in the importance of the inner life and I believe that, if if we paid more attention to it, the world would be better off: it is clear that this society – from East to West – has failed. Re-studying the story with my son, I observe that the question of courses and appeals is true, everything repeats itself. But let’s finish it, let’s cut this chain! And so in my small way, in a song, I tried to put those words here and there that lead back to something higher.

“My ecological commitment”

“His little one” also includes the ecological commitment. The new song Without border it’s a kind of manifesto.
The text is actually by Elisa: we have been friends for more than twenty years (they took the first two places in Sanremo 2001, in this edition they duetted, ed), we are also bound by the desire to raise our voices and contribute to causes that matter to us. My contribution to Without border it is limited to the final verses, with the list of divinities connected to nature. Which coincidentally, in any cultural tradition, are females: from Gaia to Mami Wata, from Demetra to Ashanti, from Nana Buluku to Nemaya and Maliya…

What should the collective mantra be today?
Me, nature, the sky. Me, nature, the sky. Me, nature, the sky… (laughs). I no longer have unconditional faith in mankind, but I hope in the new generations: the Maya claimed that, after a difficult transition, enlightened souls would be born.

Giorgia’s “Words said badly”.

And the genesis of the Sanremo song, Bad words?
It’s not mine, it’s Alberto Bianco’s, but – paradoxically – it seems the most mine of all, with this feeling of melancholy that assails those who live deeply and almost prevents us from moving forward, keeping us tied to the past. But in the last section comes the light that burns fears: there will remain a nostalgia, almost a remorse, towards a piece of your existence that is no longer there and yet, being now part of you, is transformed. You take her hand and move on.

I didn’t mean to ask her about Alex Baroni (her ex-boyfriend who passed away in 2002), but the piece forces us to.
I couldn’t have gotten so much into it if I hadn’t gone through that experience there, of course. And, unfortunately, not only that: in these twenty years, since he is gone, I have found myself on other occasions experiencing the physical loss of loved ones, I have had to retrace the same path, although little by little I I am convinced that there must be a meaning.

Thirty years of career and an endless list of successes: from millions of records sold to awards, from duets with Pavarotti and Sting to collaborations with Pino Daniele and Herbie Hancock. The most important satisfactions for you?
In first place, the performance with Ray Charles, a full circle: he was the myth of my father, he called me that because of his Georgia On My Mind. Then Mina, who agreed to play mine Few words and sang with me: “I look like you”. The other day a guy stopped me: “You don’t know how much we fell in love with your songs!”. When the affection settles, you comfort yourself: whatever, then it was worth it.

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