Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
This beautiful ballad was inspired by Raimondo Lanza di Trabia, an aristocrat known for his electrifying personality and for his romantic relationships (Rita Hayworth and Susanna Agnelli among them). At the age of thirty-nine, he threw himself from a hotel window in Rome.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
Corrado, a popular host, launched the song on Italian TV and it was also sold as a single. It was so successful that a sequel, “Sei contento papà?” [Are You Happy, Dad?] was created.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
This is a song by Nino Manfredi and is about a boy who believes he's Tarzan. Being a parent isn't easy.
Difficulty: Adv-Intermediate
Italy
Måneskin is a band with four musicians who began playing together as students at the J.F. Kennedy High School in Rome. Their participation on X Factor brought about their phenomenal success. The band's name Måneskin means moonshine in Danish, and was a word that Victoria de Angelis, the bassist, knew from her Danish ancestry.
Difficulty: Beginner
Italy
Lucio Dalla and Francesco De Gregori perform the song that was originally titled “Gesù Bambino” [Christ Child] but was changed to Dalla's date of birth after censure from the Sanremo music festival.
Difficulty: Beginner
Italy
This song is one guy's RSVP to a wedding invitation from his ex-girlfriend. He feels he should explain why he is not going to attend. The refrain uses the tricky verb dimenticare (to forget) in three different ways, first as an infinitive: dimenticare, then with a direct object pronoun attached to it: dimenticarti (to forget you), and finally, as a reflexive verb (to forget) with its pronoun attached: dimenticarmi di te (to forget you).
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
Marco Mengoni was greatly influenced by Muhammad Ali, by his stand on religious and racial freedom, as well as by his physical and mental courage in the ring. This song makes the connection.
Difficulty: Beginner
Italy
Massimo Ranieri has never stopped being popular in Italy. Here he sings a song about a man who thought he had found love, but then lost it.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
This song, written by Ivano Fossati and sung by Loredana Bertè with her scratchy voice, has never lost its popularity with Italians.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
The poignant text of this song was inspired by the singer-songwriter's experience as a volunteer in a mental institution in Rome and meant to create awareness of the reality of mental illness. It is sung from the point of view of someone who had been deemed insane and shut into a manicomio (insane asylum) for most of his life.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
There are various interpretations of this famous song sung by Mina. What or whom does il corvo (the crow) represent? A judge? A priest? An agent? Whoever is seen as an ugly black crow has the power but lacks wisdom.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
Ferzan Özpetek directed this video of images from his movie La Dea Fortuna, for which the song "Luna Diamante" (diamond moon) is part of the soundtrack. The song was written by Ivano Fossati and sung by Mina.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
Samuele Bersani relives the past when he was still a pre-teen, starting to have secret thoughts. The video contains plenty of illustrations of the words he is singing.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
This is the famous aria for tenor from Puccini's Turandot, sung here by the legendary Luciano Pavarotti. Nessun is short for nessuno (no one) and dorma is the third person subjunctive of the verb dormire (to sleep) used as an imperative for the herald to proclaim that no one in the city may sleep.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
In honor of Mother's Day, celebrated in May in Italy, here's a classic Italian song, Mamma, performed by Luciano Pavarotti.
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