Veronica

(Sandro Ciotti, Dario Fo, Enzo Jannacci) – Enzo Jannacci, 1964

Jannacci used to play in a milk bar in Milan, the Shanghai bar. When I heard him I was so impressed that I suggested he came to perform at the Grotte del Piccione, the most fashionable club in Rome, owned by my friend Piero Gabrielli, a former rugby champion with a great manager’s flair (he would go on to organize exhibitions in via Margutta). The Grotte del Piccione is where Fred Buscaglione and Marino Barreto performed regularly, and where the Champions had played occasionally. Jannacci achieved some success there. He began to commute between Milan and Rome, practically without ever sleeping because he also had to study for medical exams. Thanks to those performances he learned how to be on stage, not hiding behind the double bass or piano as he did before, but to be seen by the public. In short, he launched that career as a singer-songwriter that I tried to nip in the bud by writing Veronica for him.

The idea came to us one evening as we entered the Bussola. There was a mother who couldn’t find her daughter and went back and forth, holding her daughter’s little jacket in her hand, calling “Veronica! Veronica! Where is Veronica?” Then I said, “Veronica, amavi sol la musica sinfonica”, and from there came the song, a drunken song, as Dario Fo called it, with whom we wrote these outlandish verses, based on words with stress on the third last syllable, and told the then scandalous story of a local prostitute. Of course, the RAI was careful not to broadcast it, but despite this, Veronica was one of Jannacci’s most successful albums. The song was later sung by other interpreters, and Lino Patruno made a Sicilian version of it.

Quoted from: Ciotti, Sandro, Quarant’anni di parole, Milano, Rizzoli, 1997, pp. 35-37