Dreams come true. Not always, but sometimes. This is the difference between opening a window, jumping into the void believing we can fly, and dreaming of being happy and flying. The percentage of people jumping out of windows, fortunately, is minimal. In fact, they jump not to fly, but because they can’t do it anymore because they can’t dream that things can get better, that their dreams, at least some of them, can come true.
Nel blu dipinto di blu, a song premiered by Domenico Modugno (Polignano a Mare, 1928 – Lampedusa, 1994), talks about these two things. A song that most people know as Volare, as if the audience were familiar with the song and at home, as everyone knows, they tell you what you want.
Let’s go before the birth in Italy that was the song of the summer. The reason was to create a festival competition in imitation of the one in San Remo that was held in February, and where, by the way, Nel blu dipinto di blu had swept away years before. In this new format of the competition, it was about summoning new talents, with the reward of being the song of the summer. It was called Un disco per l’estate. It was convened by the Italian Association of Phonography and the first edition was in 1964. There was a first phase for the radio and the second for the RAI, for a space of several weeks. In a vintage delirium to today’s digital eyes, the contest was based on popular vote sent via postcard. It was so successful that the model was taken to other countries. Among these, Spain, in 1966.
Years before, on a morning with a tremendous hangover, an individual, Franco Migliacci, wakes up in a bed that is not his own and the first thing he faces, hanging from a wall, is a reproduction of Le coq rouge dans la night, painting by the Belarusian painter, Marc Chagall. The original dates from 1944 and was painted by Chagall shortly after the death of his romantic partner since the age of 14, Bella Rosenfeld. In this one, the couple’s head is shown floating in the ether, accompanying each other, without any grimace, of pain or loss. Next to it, part of the particular symbology of Chagall (of Jewish descent): a goat, a violin, the full moon and a rooster as the announcement of the new day. And of course the blue, all these elements floating in blue.
Migliacci worked hard with Modugno on this song. The Italian recording industry showed muscle both in the domestic and international markets, and to achieve success was to win at the casino. It certainly was for Modugno, who had had to ask for a loan from one of his cousins ??to leave his native Polignano and go to Rome in search of his fortune.
As an all-terrain singer-songwriter he was making a place and with all the dreams he treasured he went to the San Remo festival in 1958.
The format was a bit curious, since the prize was to represent Italy at Eurovision, the song had to be defended by two performers in different performances. In this contest in which our song won, it was defended by Modugno and Johnny Dorelli.
At Eurovision, she came third, a complete disappointment that the public and time corrected. Nel blu dipinto di blu was a smashing success around the world and was covered since its baptism date by all kinds of performers, some of sidereal size such as David Bowie, Al Martino, Dean Martin, Paul McCarney, Mina or Alex Chilton.
Modugno was the ideal performer for this song. A kind of honesty emanated from him, as if he had never stumbled into cynicism or disappointment.
He wants to share something. It seems like a dream, but rather it is a dream in which he has seen himself in the sky, painted blue himself. I was flying He had looked down and felt no fear. I wanted to fly, yes, but I also wanted to sing because I wasn’t afraid of waking up or falling.
Modugno’s very life was being the dream of being nobody, and suddenly opening his arms like a windmill and singing to all possible audiences in stages, kitchens, streets and bedrooms.
Ineffable, direct, singing the same song thousands of times, but always as if presenting it for the first time, in society. In the song, his dream is inside another and that’s something we should have suspected: he’s in love and the world has disappeared, and he doesn’t even need it as a landing strip.
