Buon compleanno Italia playlist

“Happy Birthday, Italy”

For the Italian Republic’s seventy-fourth birthday (June 2, 2020) we’ve selected a playlist that goes in chronological order from Year Zero of its foundation (1946) to present day, with two representative songs for each decade. Rather than a mini-history of Italian song, this is a cross-section of our history. It starts with the post-war period and the euphoria that came with Liberation, the founding event of the Festa d’Aprile (1948), based on lyrics by the anti-fascist intellectual Franco Antonicelli. Tammuriata nera was written in 1944, inspired by a real event that took place in Naples, announcing the multi-ethnic society that it was to become well in advance. The 1950s began with the Trieste issue, which echoes against the background of the winning song of the second edition of the Sanremo Festival, Vola colomba (1952), while U pisci spada (1954) represents the Italy rooted in the common people, photographed in the black and white style of the neorealist cinema to which Modugno the troubador refers. It is the Italy that makes way for the new customs introduced by the economic boom and flogged by Celentano in Il ragazzo della via Gluck (1966). The 1960s then open up to international horizons, chasing the dream of a generation (C’era un ragazzo che come me amava i Beatles e i Rolling Stones, 1967). In the 1970s, the Italians begin to look inside themselves and discover the vices and virtues of their way of life. Some make fun of themselves (Quelli che, 1975) and some do it civic-mindedly (Viva l'Italia, 1979). After the antagonistic hangover, the 1980s brought patriotic rhetoric back into fashion with the shameless return of the tricolor flag (Italia, 1988), and pride in being Italian (L’italiano, 1983). But it did not last long, because in the 1990s, irony once again marked Italian instinct (Inno nazionale - National anthem, 1995), up to post-modern parody (La terra dei cachi, 1996). And while the music changes, the themes remain the same in the Third Millennium as well, intent on exploring the evolution of commonplaces with a new spirit of identity - Io non mi sento italiano, 2003) - and anger – L’Italia (2009). We close with two present-day snapshots: a train trip through the beauties of the peninsula (Made in Italy, 2016) and a look at the new multiethnic Italy written by one of its hottest stars (Cara Italia, 2018).