Transcription of the episode #S1E9
Opening: Quartetto Cetra
GoOoOOoOOoOOod Morning Vietnam and Welcome Back to episode number nine of What?
Episode number nine of MU-SI-TA-LY! Got it? Musitaly đ
Musitaly is a Radio Show about Italian music released weekly via podcast that introduces you to all the Best Italian Songs unknown abroad.
The songs talk about the Italian culture as per today’s episode.
The two topics of the day are super serious and I will try to entertain you as per usual.
In fact, we will talk about Femicide and Mafia today.
These are still two big issues in my beloved country and the songs I chose to describe them from different points of view.
According to âThe Worldâs Women 2020: Trends and Statisticsâ published by the intergovernmental organisation of the United Nations, ONU as we say in Italy, an estimated 87,000 women were intentionally killed in 2017. 87,000 guys.
If you think that Galway, the 4th largest city in the Republic of Ireland, had an estimated population of almost 80,000 people in the year 2019, it means that an entire city population was killed in 2017.
More than half of them, around 58%, were killed by intimate partners or family members, meaning that, worldwide, 137 women were killed every day by intimate partners or members of their own family.
More than a third of the women killed intentionally in 2017 were killed by their current or former partners, that is someone they would usually trust.
This is something really crazy. But, do you know what is crazier? That the modernity we should live in is not different from 1964.
Why am I so specific and I say the year 1964? Because in that year a famous music band called Quartetto Cetra released a song about femicide.
The Quartetto Cetra was a famous Italian jazz vocal quartet active in the music industry between 1940 and 1990. Almost half a century together. Amazing.
Anzi, Quartetto Cetra performed for the last time on the 1st of July 1988, do you know where? In Bologna at Palazzo Poggi, the seat of the University of Bologna, located in Via Zamboni at number 33. In fact, that street is famous for the University.
It was founded in 1088 and according to Wikipedia, the University of Bologna in the year 2020 was still the oldest continuously operating university in the world.
The name of the song is âPerò mi vuole bene” which means âHowever he loves meâ. The song tells the story of a woman in love and some people who tried to warn her about her boyfriend. Each time she replied by saying âhowever he loves meâ. Until her boyfriend killed the songâs protagonist in Paris by pushing her from the top of the Eiffel Tower.
Anyway, despite the songâs meaning and almost 60 years since the song was released, the sound is still modern, timeless and cheerful, in my humble opinion.
Lyric: Quartetto Cetra – Però mi vuole bene
Part 2: Giorgio Faletti
âBene da Morirâ ⌠I hope you enjoyed the first song, the next one is one of my favourite Italian Songs ever for a couple of reasons.
The first one is because of the singer who..is not a singer. Or, to be clear, he didnât start his long artistic career as a singer.
He began his career as a stand-up comedian in Milan, he was one of the most famous performers of one of the most iconic Italian TV Shows at the beginning of the Italian commercial television series called Drive-In during the â80s.
One of his characters in the Drive-In TV Show was called âVito Catozzoâ, a funny and clumsy police officer. And do you know what the funny story is?
The protagonist of the next song we will listen to is also an officer.
But the song is not funny. Itâs exactly the opposite.
You must know that before the era of making mafia gangsters cool with books and movies, in the early â90s Italy experienced one of the hardest and roughest times ever.
Those years, in fact, will forever be remembered as the era of the Mafia massacres.
It was the same period in which Italian heroes such as judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino lost their lives.
So most of the time the police escort officers lost their lives with them. Unfortunately, most of the time, police officers are not in the spotlight as they deserve.
The song I am introducing to you, guys, is the voice of one of those officers. A young 20 years old police officer and his desperate outburst talking on the radio with his lieutenant describing the moment when the songâs protagonist learned of the explosion of another bomb killing some colleagues.
The young officer often says âMinchiaâ a typical Southern Italy swear word which makes us believe that he is another young guy from the South who had to leave his beloved hometown in search of a better life somewhere else in the North.
The protagonist sings and describes all the worst parts of this honourable job as a mediocre salary, a tight police’s uniform because the command doesn’t provide new uniforms, people who mock this kind of job. But his sense of responsibility makes him say: if there is an urgent call, we will go anyway.
This song is a tribute to all the police officers, victims of the mafia who lost their lives while working and to those who will leave their life doing what they love. Their job. Their Mission.
Lyric: Giorgio Faletti – Signor Tenente
Part 3: Sergio Endrigo
OK … Letâs try to downplay the seriousness. I will tell you a funny story.
The artist I am introducing to you was, apparently, the reason why in the 2020 edition of the Sanremo Festival the singer Morgan changed the lyrics of the song Sincero sung with Bugo on stage.
That night during their performance Bugo left the stage as soon as he realized what Morgan was doing and then they were disqualified from the tournament as per regulation.
So. What’s the story behind it? In the year 2020, the Sanremo tournament required an extra performance singing an Italian song from the past.
Bugo and Morgan have chosen a song by Sergio Endrigo called âCanzone per Teâ.
Well, apparently Bugo made a mistake when singing the cover song and Morgan as revenge, in the following performance, did what he did.
At this point you may be thinking: Why?
Well, Morgan then said: Sergio Endrigo is too important for the history of Italian Music and did not deserve public humiliation for making a mistake singing one of his songs.
Well, as you understood we will listen to Sergio Endrigo!
Let me tell you the name of the song: Via Broletto 34 which we can translate as 34, Broletto Street.
This song describes femicide committed by a man in love, or perhaps obsessed, with a woman.
During the song, he says she does what she wants and sometimes she comes home too late.
When he tries to kiss her, she laughs and talks about something else.
She is all he has, but if you walk down Via Broletto, 34 you can even scream but she won’t hear you because she sleeps with a red stain on her heart. He killed her and because he is a gentleman, he will never say why he did it.
Well, guys you must know that until 1981 in Italy there was a law called âhonour crimesâ.
It recognized the offended honour as an attenuating circumstance if someone killed their partner because of treason or something like that.
It allowed the killer to receive a light sentence of three to seven years in jail.
Thinking again about the end of the song:
I am a gentleman and I will never tell you the reason why I killed her.
Let’s say this song was released in 1962 and it gives us a context of what was happening at that time.
Anyway… Thanks to Law 442/81 the honour crime was abolished in Italy but, unfortunately, like in the Quartetto Cetra song, nothing has changed yet in terms of femicide in the world and not even in Italy.
Lyric: Sergio Endrigo – Via Broletto 34
Part 4: Modena City Ramblers
E a nessuno dirò il perchĂŠ ⌠VabbĂŠ I will tell you why, instead, I chose the next song, BUT …
First, please allow me the pleasure of reminding you of the website musitaly.com and the social accounts @Musitaly to reach Musitaly otherwise cocopraise.com if you would like to know what I do aside from the best Radio Show Ever.
#musitaly and @cocopraise
Ok … the fourth song of the day.
To tell you the story of the next song we have to fly to one of the most amazing places in the world. The beautiful island of Sicily in the South of Italy.
That region is full of history, culture, amazing food, great weather at least 360 days per year and last but not least, Sicily is full of beautiful people.
Unfortunately, that region is also known for the house of the mafia. You must know that mafia means secrecy, a conspiracy of silence, intimidation, racketeering, kidnapping and murder all in the name of honour, power or private economic interests. Sometimes especially the conspiracy of silence. It is like gasoline for the mafia.
Now think about the year 1976 when a brave Sicilian young man built a Radio Station named Radio Aut together with his friends.
BTW âAutâ is not from English O-U-T but probably from the Latin A-U-T which means OR otherwise AKA.
Peppino Impastato is the name of the protagonist of the song, who tried to fight the mafia when most people denied the existence of the mafia. They said:â La mafia, non esisteâ. The mafia does not exist.
Through his radio show, Peppino Impastato, sued and mocked all the local mafia bosses creating embarrassment for the honor of these people. And it was a serious affront. Peppino had to be punished in some way. Mainly to set an example for the rest of the population. Because the mafias also feed on fear.
In the night between the 7th and the 8th of May 1978, Peppino Impastato was found dead.
There is a movie released in 2000 that tells this story. The name of this movie is âI Cento Passiâ, âone hundred stepsâ. The same distance between Peppinoâs parent house and the house of the local mafia boss, by the way, the same person that later ordered his murder.
The song we will listen to is part of the soundtrack of this movie and it was released by a famous folk band in activity since 1991 from the North of Italy, Modena⌠and They are Modena City Ramblers
Lyric: Modena City Ramblers – I Cento Passi
Part 5: Nobraino
For the last song of this intense episode, we should move not too far from Modena. We just have to travel a hundred kilometres on the motorway and arrive in Romagna, where you can taste a good glass of Sangiovese di Romagna while eating the delicious Piadina with Italian ham and squacquerone ..
The name of the song we will listen to is I Signori della Corte and the name of the band is The Nobraino ⌠itâs like a joke between the two words No and Brain ⌠The music band belongs to the independent music movement also known as indie.
The frontman of the band, Lorenzo Kruger, is one of the talented and smartest people I met in my life. A real gifted person.
So, Why this song? This song itâs like a journey: A trial defendant describes the extravagant and dramatic events that led to the murder of his beloved and undecided girlfriend Berenice.
Unlike the Sergio Endrigo song, in this case, we know very well why the protagonist of the song killed his girlfriend.
The protagonist of the song, in front of the judges of the court, said he stabbed her ten times but for two of them he apologized. But ⌠he clarified he is not crazy.
In fact, guys, this is another aspect of the tragedy of femicide. Most of the time, the killers declare themselves temporarily insane and for this reason, some of them receive a reduction in sentences.
So Ladies and Gentlemen⌠this is I Signori della Corte, one of my favourite songs everâŚ
Lyric: Nobraino – I Signori della corte
Closing
E VabbĂŠ. I donât know if you enjoyed this long and extreme episode and if you think I handled these two serious topics well.
If not, I sincerely apologize.
I would like to thank you for listening to me until the end of the episode.
As usual, Musitaly will be back next week with a new episode when we are going to listen to five songs about Nostalgia & Hopes.
In the meantime remember that you are Extraordinary and it is up to you to change this crazy world simply by doing what you love.
Love You and âŚ
Donât Forget Me.
Ciao!
Sources:
United Nations Report
