And on February 1, 1958 when Domenico Modugno takes the stage of the Ariston in Sanremo to leave thousands of Italians amazed on the notes of “Nel blu painted di blu”, later renamed by popular acclaim as ” Volare “. A song born almost by chance, on a Roman day in July 1957, born from the intuition of Franco Migliacci and Modugno, the two authors of the text. It was Migliacci who had the sudden inspiration after waking up still dazed by the hangover of that day. The first thing he saw before his eyes when he woke up was Chagall’s painting “Le coq rouge dans la nuit”, hanging on a wall of his house. The work depicted a flying man and a blue painted figure. It was these images that made him throw down some of the text: “I painted myself in blue / I dressed in blue / to match the sky / up there in the firmament / fly towards the sun”. With Modugno I continue to work on the text for months which came to mind the famous refrain one morning at his home, when a gust of wind opens his window and he gets up to close it. Looking out, he instinctively cried out: “Fly!” You knew immediately that was what it took for the chorus of his song. The materialization of a dream “I think a dream like this will never come back” . This is the sentence that starts a dream, as the two authors will later declare. And it is precisely this incipit to initiate that dreamlike vision of a man who, blending with the color of the sky and which could at the same time remind the eyes of his beloved, leads to a flight of freedom that Modugno emphasizes with the opening of his arms. to the chorus“Fly oh oh” . A text written according to Migliacci, following a nightmare that occurred when he was suffering from some amorous pains and which for this reason also led to think that that imagined flight could be an unconscious desire to end it all. READ ALSO: Sanremo, the 10 most poetic songs in the history of the Festival The childhood dream
Finally fly free and beyond the sun in the blue sky and from there enjoy the vision of the shrunken world. A part of the text, this, which materializes that childhood dream to which the wind and two blue eyes are added. In addition to the greatness of the meaning, what gives further poetry to the text, and the almost “revolutionary” interpretation of Modugno. That the text is original and risky is already clear but to this is added the emphasis of a free and carefree Modugno on the stage of the Ariston. For the first time someone breaks the static canons of interpretation of the Italian song and accompanies the lines of the text with gestures, almost reciting them. The result is an enthusiastic public who, together with journalists and critics, sees waving white handkerchiefs out as if in a collective liberation.“Mister Volare” , whose revolution will be approached by other singers starting from those fifties.
