‘Azzurro’ is a classic from Paolo Conte’s lectern (its author, along with the lyricist Vito Pallavicini), but to fit it into the category of anti-summer song, we have to remember it, above all, in its original version, that of Adriano Celentano, in 1966. There, with its fanfare and its rhythm of march, intoned with that frank voice, “that belongs to the people and that seeks the truth & rdquor ;, as Conte said one day, the stark contrast between his apparent jubilation and the changed step that transpires the letter.
Summer has come she has gone to the beach And here we are, at home, looking at the ceiling, hearing the whistle of the planes and feeling that the afternoon is going to be long. The protagonist thinks aloud and compares his boredom with that of “those sundays in solitude” at the seminary, “many years ago,” but now he doesn’t even have a chaplain handy to chat with. Imagination and surrealism enter there, and he sees himself running to the station in fits and starts to meet her. “But the train of my desires / in my thoughts goes the other way around & rdquor ;. He remembers when he was a child and he looked in the garden for something that made him think of a distant destination: Africa, the oleanders, the baobab tree and a lion that “who knows where he is”.
with a broken voice
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They say that Celentano showed up at the recording studio dragging a cold and that there were doubts about whether it was the best day to complete the session. But she finally made up her mind, thinking that perhaps that diminished, nasal voice could better convey her state of mind. laziness and abandon attributable to the character. From there came a song that would eventually become a kind of alternative Italian anthem, where blue alludes to the sky, but also corresponds to the national team jersey in football or basketball (the ‘squadra azzurra’ ). The origins of the identification of blue with Italy go back to the banner of the Savoy royal family, at the time of the unification of the country.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQrLhvyEdEE
‘Azzurro’ conveys vigor and elevates the spirit despite the fact that its lyrics are full of melancholy and bewilderment. An extreme case of dissociation. Paolo Conte, who at first was a composer and not a performer, ended up incorporating it into his repertoire when, in the mid-1970s, approaching his forties, he decided to go on stage. Decades later, it is possible to see in the song a meeting point of the Italians, as was observed two years ago, when, in the days of confinement, people sang on balconies and terraces.