Singer Songwriters From Italy

"In some cities in the north, I have met people who are upset when you tell them you are Calabrian: they still expect to see a dark, short man with a moustache and a shotgun, a grim look on his face and a big hat. I think Puerto Ricans are better off than us. (p. 51)"

"I have written several pieces about emigration, but I have always placed this scourge within the broader and more alienating concept of marginalization and, above all, I have not portrayed the emigrant in the usual, trite iconography (teary eyes, cardboard suitcase, and mother dressed in black), trying instead to capture more of the turmoil of his emotions and affections. (p. 61)"

"(Referring to some of his songs) “Here there is no Gianna, Aida, or Berta spinning | and when the sun sets, Maria is already gone. | Despite the changes, this sky is always blue, | it is always the color you left it.”"

"We're here tonight to say goodbye to a friend, | to remember a brother named Rino. | I went to Verano just to say goodbye | because, I can say, I grew up with you. | If there were a monument, millions would come | to pay homage to the genius who sang the songs.‘’"

"The life of the solitary and tormented singer-songwriter (who died in a car accident) was short but intense in terms of the creativity of his compositions, which ranged from paradox to sarcasm. An exuberant and satirical artist with a captivating musical vein, Rino Gaetano played a witty and irreverent role that was unusual in the Italian music scene."

"I will say right away that Rino Gaetano was an artist, and I would add that this cannot be said of everyone. He was an artist, with all the fragility of artists, with a presence and an often decisive desire to provoke. Nuntereggae più is more than a song, it is a manifesto, a chorus of protest."

"Time causes some songs to fade, while Rino's songs defy the power of time: with simple harmonic turns, provocative, irreverent phrases, but recited with the lightness and naivety of a pure artist. And always with his unmistakable scratchy voice."

"Rino's songs are not songs of remembrance, they are songs of the present and the future. The first word I associate with him is: forward. And the Rino of thirty years ago, that Rino, even today, would be one step ahead of all of us."

"When he took to the stage at Sanremo in 1978 to sing Gianna, he looked like he had stepped out of the famous song by Domenico Modugno: he wore a top hat and tailcoat with a boutonniere. With his blend of irony, optimism, romanticism, and nonsense, he was quite unique on the Italian scene, an outsider, like Buscaglione."

"Our destiny is always in our name. Rino Gaetano has two first names: Rino and Gaetano. When you address someone by their first name, it is because you know them, because they are a friend. He even has two [...] Rino and Gaetano, one cheerful and one sad, one studious and one who ends up behind the blackboard, one tender and one sarcastic, one committed and one who doesn't care. Two brothers, two only children, as we all are in a way. Unique."

"Il tempo è giustiziere Rino | ora i tuoi dischi suonano come se fossero appena usciti. | Rino, hai vinto tu."

"When I got Rino Gaetano's record, I was delighted because I found someone who was as unconventional as me. In reality, those were years when singer-songwriters were committed; if you weren't “committed”—a cursed word, damnably fashionable—you were out of the loop. But then Rino Gaetano came along with his seemingly uncommitted songs."

"Gaetano wrote some of the songs that are part of our country's memory. Songs of memory are important, think, I don't know, ‘Zazà’, ‘I papaveri alti alti’ are songs of memory that were not commercially successful or whatever, but they do not live only in the space of a fashion, of a period, they are the ones that remain in the collective memory, they are handed down orally."

"It was precisely this attitude that struck me when I heard the first “things” from a young man from Crotone who, wearing a strange hat, enjoyed teasing people with his own songs, which were beautiful songs. It seems a bit of a jumbled thought, but I hope it conveys the idea of what this young man from Crotone, “named” Rino Gaetano, seemed to me to be doing. So I began to “play him” (radio language of the time...) and talk about him in newspaper columns in the weekly magazines of the same period. I was thrilled once again that Gaetano invented ‘the other song’, the song of the song, that he pursued the rhymes that first came to mind... (and therefore the most inspired...). That he sang everything with ease and lightness; even that some people didn't like Gaetano; this thrilled me."

"But he is an irreverent knight: when he takes to the stage at the Ariston in Sanremo to sing Gianna, he does so in a tailcoat and red striped shirt, with a top hat and sneakers. In this pastiche of words, colors, sounds, screams, and grimaces, the trait that distinguishes him from everyone else is his irony, lived with his heart, with total passion, never with coldness, never with detachment. Irony is his weapon as a poet and, to quote a philosopher, in Rino “irony is the sure eye that knows how to grasp the crooked, the absurd, the futility of existence.”"

"Rino Gaetano continues to flourish everywhere, even though he is no longer with us, because his figure and his music are still deeply embedded in the collective imagination and memory of our country. His music still sounds like a manifesto of brilliant protest, because Rino never sets himself up as a censor, judge, or moralizer: he recounts the world through his desires and his irony, his desire for liberation from individual anxieties and social injustices, his dreams, his artistic illusions."

"Rino and I met in 1970. I don't remember the exact day, but I think he showed up at Folkstudio, where we were already there: me, De Gregori, and Giorgio Lo Cascio. To ‘us’, the famous four guys with guitars, Bassignano joined us, but I think Bassignano arrived in '71. I was a taxi driver, so in the evenings."

"(About the miniseries ‘'Rino Gaetano - Ma il cielo è sempre più blu’') The fiction did not mention cocaine; it was very present in those years and in the circle where Rino ended up in his last years, and it was also responsible for his tragic end. The story ignored Rino's real problem, cocaine."

"I believe that young people today continue to love him or, in some cases, to rediscover him, because of his great simplicity. So generations are clearly renewing themselves through his repertoire."

"I remember once talking about it with Paolo Conte and we were very impressed by his song called ‘'E cantava le canzoni’' (And he sang songs), it was a folk song [...] and it's about transhumance, a road full of cows with bells, the whistles of shepherds. [...] There, really, in a song like that, I recognize his great musical talent."

"I think that in the category of, let's say, “songwriters,” he was the most unusual one."

"He wanted to sing in English because he wanted to disguise himself in some way, so much so that this characteristic accompanied him even later, when he made his official debut, he was always dressed in a curious way."

"From the authors he read, Dante, Pavese, Palazzeschi, from the music he listened to, from his appearances on television. I wanted to bring out a side of him that had never been seen before, his most poetic and fragile side."

"In the world of music, he passed like spring, very quickly..."

"I met Rino Gaetano through De Gregori and Venditti, but he started going to the studio without me mentioning him because, how can I put it, he was somewhat protected by the two people I was working with a lot at the time."

"With his guitar, he began to play [Imitating the rhythm of ‘'Ma il cielo è sempre più’'] and began to sing “il cielo è sempre più blu” (the sky is bluer and bluer) and we all went enthusiastically to Vincenzo Micocci: “Vince', look, this guy has written a little piece that could really work,” we told him. Micocci wasn't so convinced."

"And among these guys we managed on Sunday afternoons, there was this skinny guy, with a few broken teeth, looking like a real badass with his little guitar. [...] He knew how to win my heart right away, so much so that Cesaroni, who had heard him play and “strum” the guitar, as he said, was not in favor of letting him sing even on Sunday afternoons. I, on the other hand, having found some very nice, very naive, very true things in him, waited for the moment when Giancarlo, the so-called “boss,” Cesaroni went around Trastevere drinking whiskey with De Gregori, and I would throw him on stage. And I remember well these two songs he did for a few Sundays in a row, one dedicated to a friend, who, as fate would have it, I believe had been in a car accident and died, and the other dedicated to a railway worker, Agapito Malteni, and it's a song that has stayed with me; I still hum it sometimes. There was this beautiful image of a train running along the Tavoliere. That's how I got to know him."

"It must be assumed that I, like other singer-songwriters of my generation, make pop music. But that doesn't prevent me from saying things that aren't light. I also talk about love, but I avoid describing situations such as: she leaves me, goes to someone else, then regrets it and comes back to me. So, even in my language, I try to be realistic. That is, when talking about love, I avoid using the usual tearful and useless words. (p. 31)"

"It was like this: you sing, sing... say, say... talk... and I'll take you all for..."

"I am in favor of criticism because I think that even negative criticism helps everyone grow, both as a person and as an artist. For me it's important to know from people who don't like you what the reason is for trying to improve yourself. Among the compliments, however, I am pleased when they tell me that I am genuine and simple. I like that it comes out that I'm not a big person. I feel like the same person as before with a little more awareness. Before I was completely out of this world and now I'm realizing that I can face it. Obviously there are people who like me who support me and, therefore, having this little extra awareness doesn't hurt."

"In my opinion Amici is not a competition or just a talent show, but a school of life, because a leap like this is only made when human relationships are real, when you are "friends" with a capital "A". At four years old my father Marco asked me what I wanted to do as a hobby. I told him that I wanted to play the piano, which was already played in the family, and to play tennis. My parents immediately allowed me to do both. I consider myself very lucky. Tennis, which I played at a competitive level, was fundamental. It's an individual sport: if you win, you just win, ditto if you lose. On the field I almost eat the ball as much as I want to do it."

"I still don't feel like populate. Of course, walking through the streets of my city there are people who stop and ask me for a photo, it's a beautiful thing."

"Every day I do new things, I'm very happy to live in this loop. I live tossed around Italy, but I'm very excited. I've been singing since I was little, I've never actually studied. But in the villages there were the first experiences of singing in public. I listen to a lot of different music, I don't listen to rap that much. I mostly listen to pop. I like melodies that are beautiful to sing. I am lucky that I have many trusted people who follow me. I also have my sister who is working with me a little, she has no reason to wrong me, when she tells me something I'm sure she is saying it for my good."

"My father was a piano teacher, while my mother played the piano: it goes without saying that the passion in me was born very early and that my parents have always supported me, advising me to play the classical piano while I was singing. I lived my life with everyone singing around me – whatever passion I had, my family always supported me. If this doesn't happen, you unfortunately start with one point less."

"When I was ten I was very sure of myself; once a year I skied and on that occasion I was always convinced that I would win all the competitions and in fact I did. I threw myself into it without fear. Then I moved on to tennis and I started to be more afraid of making mistakes. I got scared and started making more mistakes than I would have if I hadn't had all that paranoia. I started to doubt myself, to have no self-esteem. On some days it's freezing, on others it's below zero. I am very self-critical and I always want to give my best, I think this is the reason. I feel a bit Sexy Magica: I understand it as synonymous with carefreeness. I do what I feel like doing, I'm myself."

"Communication works like this: the image of a woman today is that her power is control, but it is a suggestion, it is like showing a beautiful photo."

"I feel as French as I do Italian. Today, my life is in France, but my heart, my roots and my culture belong equally to both countries, and I am proud to have dual nationality. My greatest joy, but also my greatest dilemma, would be if France and Italy met again in the World Cup final."

"Image is the fracture of contemporaneity. Rereading the myth of Narcissus as an adult, you understand that he dies not because he loves his image, but because he prefers his image to himself. I am convinced that our individual relationship with our image is quickly established in childhood: what is this reflection for you? It is you. Do you accept yourself as you are? OK. But usually we are disappointed or vain, because we are divided: half of us are animals, half of us feel like God."

"The unique position I find myself in thanks to my marriage gives me the opportunity to meet people I would never have met otherwise, to give a voice to those who do not have one, and to draw public attention to causes that are close to my heart. It is a unique opportunity that I do not want to pass up."

"I was fortunate enough to grow up healthy, in a privileged and artistic environment. I would like to be able to pass on some of this good fortune to those who have not been so lucky. The fight against AIDS is a cause I have supported for many years. The fashion world in which I worked was severely affected by this disease and mobilised from the outset."

"My role attracts media attention. Attention that I hope to direct towards important causes, which unfortunately still attract little interest. I hope to draw the public's attention to those who fight exemplarily every day to improve the lives of others. The more visible their work is, the more it will be supported by the general public, and the more likely they will be to obtain the necessary means to continue and develop their activities."

"What bothers me about ageing is the tiredness, feeling less physically strong. As for aesthetics, I preferred being twenty, but I feel sorry for the crazy battle against age. Besides, I had so many beautiful photos, beautiful moments when I was young, I used my body to the fullest. Obviously, I take care of myself, I'm careful, but more for my health."

"I can't stand discos: they are full of smoke and people jumping around and going there to pick someone up."

"First, I am a Sarkozy supporter. [...] I am an ultra-Sarkozy supporter. [...] I am no longer, at all, on the left."

"I was part of an artistic community. We were bohemians, we were left-wing, but at that time I was voting in Italy. I have never voted for the left in France, and I can tell you, I'm not about to start now. I don't really feel left-wing anymore. There have been certain events, certain comments, particularly following the Polanski-Mitterrand affair. I heard socialist leaders saying the same things as those from the National Front. That really shocked me.""

"I am proud of my bottom. It is difficult for a white woman to achieve such perfection. And I find that the bottom is very important in contemporary sensuality. It is sexy and modern. And practical. Unlike large breasts, which are old-fashioned and uncomfortable."

"I always calculate everything, everything I am I have studied at my desk. I control myself, always."

"Royal. I don't really like him, but I will always vote for the left, as my parents have always done."

"I am a materialist, I am not interested in ideals, and men who are too intense scare me."

"She is not only beautiful, but she is intelligent, dynamic and sincere. Every time I saw her, she asked me how the Tibetan cause was going! Moreover, Nicolas Sarkozy is the only French president who met me face to face, perhaps thanks to Carla, who understands Tibetan spirituality."