SONGWRITING AND SINGER SONGWRITERS

This section of the portal focuses on songwriters: lyricists, composers, or both. In many cases, however, the figure of the lyricist coincides with that of the interpreter, and in Italy this overlapping role has generated a neologism that has no equivalent in other languages: cantautore, or singer songwriter. Singer songwriters sing their own songs, as well as writing the lyrics and the music. Although they already existed in the 1920s, these artists – whose talent encompasses song and poetry – fully emerged in the 1960s and began to occupy a central place in the music industry in the 1970s, when they represented the main alternative to international pop and rock. Singer songwriters cracked a mechanism that had always been at the foundation of song production: the tripartite division between composer, songwriter and interpreter. But above all, they have played, at some stages of Italian history, a messianic role for young audiences, who turned to them to find answers that were denied elsewhere (at school, in the family, at work). Song writing aspires to rise above the average, intended as a serial product for a mass audience. It therefore pursues its own original poetry through the use of less conventional language, music, timbre and less stereotyped arrangements. The folksingers with guitar and vocals and existentialist chansonniers that were a prominent feature of the 1950s and 60s have now been replaced by figures more in tune with pop music trends. Thus the ground-breaking role that many songwriters have played in the past is vanishing, ending a historical phase in which songs automatically expressed a vision of the world. The section also features songs produced by famous pairs (lyricists and composers) or single figures (lyricists/composers) whose production is similar to that of songwriters or, conversely, tends towards the exact opposite, that is, churning out hits.
Playlists (18)
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Pier Paolo Pasolini Pier Paolo Pasolini, di cui si celebra quest’anno i...
Le canzoni e gli scrittori 3
Le canzoni e gli scrittori 3 È stato una sorta di cambio di testimone ...
Roberto Roversi
Roberto Roversi Roberto Roversi (1923-2012) è stato uno tra i pi&ugrav...
Poeti e scrittori 2
Poeti e scrittori 2 In questa seconda playlist dedicata agli scrittori e ai p...
Canzoni da nobel
Canzoni da Nobel Quando nel 1997 Dario Fo vinse il premio Nobel per la letter...
Poeti e scrittori 1
Poeti e Scrittori 1 Alla fine degli anni Cinquanta del Novecento si registr&o...
Canzoni in provincia playlist
Provincial songs There have always been songs dedicated to the great Italia...
Rimmel playlist
Rimmel - Songs by Francesco De Gregori 2 Francesco De Gregori launched h...
Riposino in pace playlist
Rest in peace The theme of death stands out in the art, literature, and poetr...
Il signor G playlist
Il signor G Performed inside a traveling tent-theater run by the Piccolo Teat...
I sing ammore, le canzoni di Pino Massara playlist
I sing ammore: the songs of Pino Massara Born Giuseppe Previde Massara in Vig...
Alice non lo sa playlist
Alice doesn’t know it. Songs by Francesco De Gregori Francesco De Grego...
Resta cu’ mme playlist
Stay with me. Songs by Domenico Modugno Doing a cover doesn't only mean ...
Le donne di Antonello playlist
Antonello's Women For a singer-songwriter born on International Women’s...
Neo televisione, nuova ossessione playlist
Neo television, new obsession Already in the late 1970s, singer-songwriters w...
Fabrizio De Andrè, fra sacro e profano playlist
Fabrizio De Andrè He sang about love in its most unusual facets, exalt...
Se telefonando playlist
Se telefonando - Songs by Ennio Morricone For Maestro Ennio Morricone&rs...
Natale d’autore playlist
Christmas songs by singer-songwriters Not just a holiday or moment for reflec...