Music makes things better “,Nick Cave once said and explained what had always happened in my life: things that seemed unbearable at times in life always became better with music. Looking back, music was like salt, an indispensable spice to everything that was happening in my “better past”. Someone once said that a better past doesn’t exist, but rather that those are simply years in which we had more opportunities to explore the world around us, and the time in which it all happened. I don’t know…
However, I grew up in a land far different from the one we live in today, in a land where a completely different aesthetic of time ruled and a different culture shaped us. That’s why I write about images from “the better past” which live inside me. So they won’t fade away.
We learned from books what kind of world existed beyond our borders; but the most crucial role belonged to radio and movies. Of course, later came television as well. In the 50s and 60s, music in SFRJ, before the breakthrough of rock ‘n’ roll and subculture which came from the UK and USA, mostly came from Italy, through San Remo, the festival of Italian canzone, the festival of light melodies, which was a serious challenge to all countries that nourished pop music.. „Nekako sproleća“, Saturday evening, whole families watched together San Remo – went crazy about Adriano Celentano, Mina, Milva and other Italian canzone stars. Generally, Italy was present everywhere around us, not only in music, but also Italian movies, fashion that was imitated and vespas that were driven in cities.
It began with Domenico Modugno who captivated us with the song Volare (check my previous blog 😊) as well as “Ciao, ciao bambina” (Piove), which was later covered by Dalida and even Elvis Presley, under the name “Ask me”. From the hugely popular Adriano Celentano and „24 Mila Baci“, love was moving towards Rita Pavone, who, with her hit „Cuore“, petite and freckled, captured the hearts of Yugoslavs, so much so that she filled Tašmajdan Stadion, when she performed in 1967 in Belgrade.
When Caterina Caselli appeared, with her „Lokica“ hairstyle, that was it, game over. The song „Nessuno mi può giudicare“after appearing in San Remu in 1966, caused a sensation, sold millions of copies and gained worldwide popularity. Of course I was crazy about her, but I was mostly fascinated by the fact that a girl played bass. 😊 It was a miracle- a woman with a helmet hairstyle and a bass guitar! I couldn’t believe it. And of course, I knew all the lyrics, half-wrong. I especially made up the part “ O vista la diferenza freitueho…”
Se sono tornata a te
Ti basta sapere che
Ho visto la differenza fra lui e te ed ho scelto te
No doubt, Italian canzones were the kandeca of our hearts. ❤️Since I’m already writing about it, Italian music always brings me back, like the snap of a finger, to the already mentioned backyard in which we sang all those songs. I see myself squatting behind a small shed, in which garbage cans were neatly ordered, trembling with fear that my friend Ilija might find my hiding spot while playing hide and seek. My heart is pounding, ready to burst out of my chest… I race as fast as I can to get there first and shout: “Base, safe for all of us!” ❤️.
Somehow, at the same time San Remo entered our lives, began the trips, conquest to Trieste to be precise, a massive rush on the city, like it was one giant shopping mall, searching for jeans, bed dolls, Nescafe and who knows what else… Many years later, Trieste was also my need for records, books, comics and some clothes.
Of course, for all of us movie and music lovers, the main culprits for infecting us with Italian culture was Ennio Morricone, that master of world movie music, who showed us how music can elevate a godforsaken desert in which Clint Eastwood is dealing with various criminals, and how those epic empty desert landscapes in Leone’s movies can, with music, become a sight for sore eyes.
😊I fell in love with Bàcaro, small venetian taverns, where you can drink the sweetest wines of the Veneto region, Botticelli and everything the eye can capture from the sensational Italian paintings and sculptures, Italian fashion. I learned from the Italians that “fashion speaks”, met all those big names of “pulsing force of Italian style”, devoured with my eyes all those well-dressed women, learned…and we all said how no one can make shoes like Italians.
I adored Fellini and his films “8½” and “Amarcord”, then the brilliant Pasolini… I came to love Lina Wertmüller and Mimì metallurgico, Giancarlo Giannini, and of course the one and only Marcello Mastroianni…
