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In
1958, when the San Remo Festival was won by Domenico Modugno’s revolutionary
song, with words by Franco Migliacci, “Nel blu, dipinto di blu” [“In
the blue, painted blue”] (which later became “Volare”), the adjective
and noun “blue” enjoyed a period of great popularity and hit the headlines.
Between
October and November this year, in connection with the UMTS auction
for the new portable telephone licences, the word Blue, unfailingly
with a capital B, was back on the newspaper front-pages but for different
reasons, giving rise to much controversy.
The
word is of French derivation, as it comes from “bleu”, and the 1865
edition of the Tommaseo-Bellini dictionary already included a fascinating
list of shades. Dictionaries published in more recent years list other
hues: navy blue, electric blue, horizon blue, peacock blue, gendarme
blue (from the colour of the old uniforms worn by French gendarmes)...
Another peculiar point.
Why,
when talking about aristocrats, do we say they have “blue blood”? The
French say “avoir le sang bleu”, Italians assert “sangue blu”, the Germans
say “blaue Blut”. Etymologists trace the expression back to the Spanish
“sangre azul”, boasting the old and noble families of Castile which
never united with the Moorish or the Jews. The concept is thought to
have originated from the exterior colour of the veins of people with
a fair complexion and slight figure.
But
let us go back to the Modugno-Migliacci song. Modugno, who was born
in 1928 at Polignano a Mare, in the Bari province, already was an extremely
successful author of dialectal songs.
Both
he and Migliacci were also amateur painters and admirers of the Russian
Marc Chagall (1887-1985), especially of one of his paintings, “Le coq
rouge”, portraying a little man hanging in mid-air who seems to be flying
in the blue sky. That painting suggested a line of verse: “Di blu m’era
dipinto” (I had painted myself blue”), on which the two started working.
In
a 1978 interview, Modugno said: “One morning I woke up and told my
wife: Look what a nice day! She replied: I think it’s raining. I felt
a great feeling of happiness growing inside. I sat at the piano and
started singing: Nel blu, dipinto di blu. Then suddenly I felt the urge
to go to the window, and throwing open my arms as if about to fly off,
I powerfully cried out: Voolaaree...oh, oh !”.
At
Sanremo it was not a success: it was more than that, it was a triumph,
a frenzy; people started screaming and waving their handkerchiefs and
the same enthusiastic reaction took place in the houses and in the bars
where television sets existed. Modugno’s decisive gesture was to throw
his arms open, at a time in which singers always faced the audience
with their hands tightly clasped to their heart. The name of Modugno
(who died in 1994, after a long illness) quickly went round the world.
The song title “Nel blu dipinto di blu”, maybe for purposes of convenience,
changed to “Volare”, which the American, with their English phonetics,
called “Vohlah-ray”.
Among
the interpreters, there were two names which belong to the history of
music: Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald. Modugno was invited to take
part in the most popular TV show in the United States: the Ed Sullivan
Show, and he also sang at the “Casino Royal”, the most fashionable nightclub
in Washington.
In
Italy, “Volare” sold about nine hundred thousand copies, an absolutely
striking figure for our record market.
But
the figure reached by “Volare” worldwide is staggering to say the least:
22 million records.
There
is only one song which has exceeded this figure in sales: “White Christmas”,
sung by Bing Crosby (1904-1977), which in the “Guinness Book of Records”
is mentioned, in the forty-five version, as the one with the longest
permanence in the Charts: 86 weeks. I recollect Crosby’s deep voice
and see him again in a film, “Going my way” playing the role of a priest,
father O’Malley, when he won the Oscar for Best Leading Actor. I see
him and hear his voice again in another film, “The Bells of St.Mary’s”,
again playing father O’Malley, with the great Ingrid Bergman playing
the role of a nun.
Luckily,
imagination is not bound by time and space. Therefore nothing can prevent
us from combining, in our imagination, the two unforgettable heroes
of the history of popular music: Bing Crosby and our Modugno. The records
attained by them are intact; time glides away but leaves them untouched.
Crosby puts on father O’Malley’s cassock again, Modugno continues to
open his arms wide as if he wanted to embrace the whole world.
They
are both “in the blue” now.
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