Vespa Tunes XII : Dolce Enrico, Antonello Venditti, 1991.

As photos from 2020 pop up on my phone, and memories appear on social media, this spring I’ve been thinking sporadically about what was happening three years ago. It feels like an astonishingly, exhaustingly long time ago. Like something which happened to someone else, possibly in a half-remembered novel, perhaps filtered through a dream.

Antonello Venditti, 1 May 2020

As in a many other countries, the first of May is a public holiday in Italy, the Festa dei Lavoratori (the Workers’ Holiday). Since 1990 the free Concertone di Primo Maggio has taken place in front of Rome’s cathedral at piazza di San Giovanni in Laterano to audiences of over half a million, but three years ago it was a solo televised performance by Rome’s evergreen musical wunderkind Antonello Venditti alone in the deserted piazza. So I’m afraid this is the second Venditti tune in a row, he is however peak Rome, the ultimate expression of romanitas. And because Rome is Rome, and because he is part of a time in which politics was ever present, he is not an impartial chap. Though many who sing along to his songs may vote differently or, ever more common, not at all, Venditti is and always has been a man of the left.

So when, in the last days of our lockdown, Venditti sang in the deserted piazza at St John in Lateran one of the songs alluded to one of the most extraordinary events to have taken place there in modern times, an event which all Italians old enough at the time remember: the funeral of Enrico Berlinguer in 1984. Over a million people from all over Italy (and beyond, Gorbachev was among the foreign dignitaries to attend) are estimated to have thronged the piazza and surrounding streets, and it was broadcast live. Venditti’s song was first released in 1991, and is a paean to Berlinguer, the most successful leader of the PCI, the Italian Communist Party founded by Antonio Gramsci.

The official video of Venditti’s song on YouTube is of a concert in Palermo which was scheduled into Venditti’s tour in the summer of 1992 in the wake of the murders of Borsellino and Falcone.

I can’t imagine a sentimental ballad to a politician being a great hit elsewhere. But three years ago, in the midst of a global pandemic, a crooner sang a love song to the dead leader of the Communist Party in front of the Mother Church of all Catholics. It really has no equivalence, it’s all just too Rome for words.

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Enrico, se tu ci fossi ancora
Ci basterebbe un sorriso
Per un'abbraccio di un'ora
Il mondo cambia, ha scelto la bandiera
L'unica cosa che resta è un'ingiustizia più vera

Enrico, if you were still here

A smile would serve us

For an hour-long hug

The world changes, its chosen its flag

The only thing that remains is stronger injustice

Qui tutti gridano
Qui tutti, "Noi siamo diversi"
Ma se li senti parlare sono da sempre gli stessi
Quante bugie, quanti segreti in fondo al mare
Pensi davvero che un giorno noi li vedremo affiorare?

Here everyone shouts

Here everyone “we’re different”

But when you hear them speak they’re all the same

How many lies, how many secrets in the bottom of the sea¹

Do you really think one day we’ll see them surface?

Oh, no, non dirmi no
Dimmi che quel giorno ci sarò

Oh no, don’t tell me no

Tell me I’ll be there on that day

Chiudo gli occhi e penso a te, dolce Enrico
Nel mio cuore accanto a me, tu sei vivo
Chiudo gli occhi e tu ci sei, dolce Enrico
Tu sorridi accanto a me

I close my eyes and think of you, sweet Enrico

In my heart you’re alive, next to me

I close my eyes and you’re there, sweet Enrico

You’re smiling next to me

A San Giovanni stanotte la piazza è vuota
Ma quanta gente che c'era sotto la grande bandiera
E quante bugie, quanti segreti in fondo al mare
Dimmi che un giorno, davvero, noi li vedremo affiorare?

At San Giovanni tonight the piazza is empty

But how many people there were under the great flag

How many lies, how many secrets in the bottom of the sea

Do you really think one day we’ll see them surface?

Oh, no, non dirmi no
Dimmi che quel giorno ci sarò

Oh no, don’t tell me no

Tell me I’ll be there on that day

Chiudo gli occhi e penso a te, dolce Enrico
Nel mio cuore accanto a me, tu sei vivo
Chiudo gli occhi e tu ci sei, dolce Enrico
Tu sorridi accanto a me

I close my eyes and think of you, sweet Enrico

In my heart you’re alive, next to me

I close my eyes and you’re there, sweet Enrico

You’re smiling next to me

1. An allusion to the Ustica plane disaster, which has never been satisfactorily explained.