Living in Italy I wanted to feel how the locals felt, see the world from their side. Music binds, knows no boundaries. Yet it happened to me at parties to feel left out. Everyone stood around the piano and sang songs by Lucio Battisti and Gino Paoli. In itself something new, that singing, it had never happened to me in the Netherlands. Overcome by melancholy I asked to sing a song like 'Ben ik te min'. I could not come up with 'Radar Love', that was sung in English.
Those two didn't mix: Armand and Gabriella Ferri.
 

After two lines everybody switched back to a song of Francesco de Gregori, Luigi Tenco or Mina.
 
I decided to tackle it thoroughly after visiting an exhibition on early 20th century Italy. Start at the beginning. No Battisti, no De Gregori but Caruso and the Trio Lescano! I bought the LP with 'La Madonnina degli aviatori', 'Il pinguino innamorato', 'Se potessi avere mille lire al mese' and of course 'Faccetta nera'. I memorized all... It was my march on Rome...
 

Times have changed, hence the image of 'Mille Lire Al Mese' and not 'Faccetta Nera'.
When I read the comments under the Youtube video and see the ferocity with which people have divided themselves into camps, I am shocked. Would I joke singing 'Faccetta Nera' now? I don’t think so.
 
But even in the seventies and eighties things were not all lighthearted.
Walking through Bari Vecchia with Franco one day, our conversation suddenly stopped. Franco had been stabbed by a member of a fascist youth gang and ran into him on the street… the gang member was released from prison.
The group of friends I had rolled into had previously been very politically active. Most were or had been communists. The period of the Brigatte Rosse and Lotta Continua had just ended.
It was very different from my background. I voted PSP. Of course this poster hung in my room. I was politically not that active and of course a pacifist!
 

 
Back to the music, but now of a later date.
Fred Buscaglione is an in between. With a glass of whiskey in his hand, he sang his repertoire of American-style gangster songs in which he always lost out against a splash of a blonde.
He was killed planting his Alfa against a tree. He was on his way back from a concert in Ostia to Rome…
This is a lie, of course, but the real circumstances take some away from his myth: he crashed into a Lancia Esatau in the heart of Rome with a pink Ford Thunderbird. Okay, he was 38 years old and his car was pink, but otherwise ... I prefer an Alfa.
 

The greatest hero of the period that I lived in Italy was Lucio Dalla. The lyrics of this song about Rome are beautiful: ‘È la sera dei miracoli fai attenzione. Qualcuno nei vicoli di Roma con la bocca fa a pezzi una canzone.’ (It is the night of miracles. In the alleys of Rome somebody tears a song apart with his mouth).
 
 
What else did my search bring me? I was allowed to paint in Gianni's studio in the morning hours. He had a vast collection of cassettes with Italian operas. The doors to that genre were opened by Tosca; Callas, Di Stefano and Gobbi. That opera takes place in Rome...
 

above: paintings made in Gianni's studio.

By clicking on the grey colored words, you will go to the text about Rome and the music videos.