Alberto Selly
'O Bball Do' Cavall

This summer everything was calm. The sun occasionally beat down on my body. I drank to stay hydrated. I played happily with my friends. We threw the frisbee and various things at each other (sometimes even shoes, small details). I went to the beach to take a swim, all happy to cool off. Then the catastrophe happened. Of course, not desired by me, a genuine lover of meaningful music.

A certain Alberto Selly, later nicknamed "The Man with the Perpetual Hat" (because of his long-brimmed accessory that refused to detach from his scalp) or "The Happy Dwarf" (a matter of height), wanted to take over my ears with a filthy little song, which became the summer hit of the beaches of Castelvolturno, among them Lido Mister (my beach, owned by a charming elderly man named Don Giovanni who, unfortunately, is tangled up in tax issues), Lido Irpinia (to the right of Mister) and Lido Della Pace (where there’s always a war: a perpetual mass of genetically modified beings competing and jostling to dance). Title of the song: "O' bball d'o cavall" (The Horse Dance). Imagine the joy of those musical ignoramuses dancing to such an atrocity. Everyone mimicking the movements, led by a busty instructor who flailed around. Truly speechless. And the good seller of pirated CDs, who with his stereo played it on a loop, until it made me... well, let's drop it, it's better.

Let's describe this neomelodic masterpiece (those guys again, wasn’t it enough what I did to colleague Raffaello? War it is). The video is there, and it's truly stereotypical. It airs on Tele A (guess what, a private TV!) and begins like this. Albertuccio's supposed and imaginary girlfriend utters highly ambiguous words (like the whole song, by the way): "Come on, darling, let me ride with you!" Ladies and gentlemen, please, we are in a family-friendly time slot! Let's not get crude! We are off to a great start... The singer starts with his refrain that makes even the plumpest on the beach bounce, and the most beautiful girls, because, modestly, in Campania everyone is envious of our girls! The same thing happens in the video. What a bunch of Montale’s offspring, those directors! Congratulations, Oscar (or rather IGnobel) for creativity! Let's go on the chorus, preceded by a merry trumpet sound that provokes an almost convulsive hip shake: "O' bball do cavall, è ffacl è nu sball, nu zzump copp e' spall..." (The horse dance, it’s easy, it’s a blast, a jump on the shoulders...). Here, in the footage, we find beautiful women intent on jumping on their partners’ shoulders, like jockeys. What genius, friends! I would have never figured it out myself! It needed this video with great explanatory and documentary properties.

Thank you Alberto Selly, thank you for existing! If you weren't here... it would be better! And then: "Eh oh oh oh, hands on the shoulders(...) eh oh oh oh, hands on the waist, eh oh oh oh, avoid the climb... go belly forward, go belly back (I don't have a belly, sorry)...". A frenetic combination of gestures from accomplished dancers and a suite of pretty faces throughout the song. Did you want to be an entertainer, dear Selly? Well, you didn't succeed with me, sorry again. But you can consider yourself lucky, you made a lot of people dance, you've done more good than the Day & Night products and the Slim Sobrino centers as thin as breadsticks. You deserve a round of applause. Just one, though. Don't push it. At the end of the video, we find the poster with the singer on it. I tore it down as soon as they posted it because I didn't want to see people suffer.

Another battle concluded with a positive outcome, at least I think so. Exhausted as usual, but happy to have thrown a bit of healthy and well-deserved mud on the musical track. What will be the next victim? Who knows...

P.S.: Song also covered by a child, "Little Gerry", a little cheese. But where have we ended up, now they even put children on stage to make them sing such nonsense? Non ghe se più relison…