Gianni Bella
Fiocco rosso

A few years earlier, Lucio found himself with a pink ribbon at home, and Gianni deserved at least a red bow as consolation. He too received it as a gift from the great Mogol, and to avoid looking like a young scout he returned to the attire that suited him best.

That is, the attire of a 100% certified Italian Alpha male: high-waisted white trousers and tricolor underwear underneath, enhancing and supporting the package with a surprise.

A ravenous predator of the urban jungle from whom it is difficult to escape.

Unlike Lucio, the red bow was not delivered to his home, but he spotted it - with the great Mogol’s tip - on the tail of a swaying mare on the street, one of those that make you think of a hayloft or a stable (which, note and someone will have already noticed, rhymes precisely with mare - going miles beyond the romantic and more conventional heart/love and skin/stars).

Moreover, everything can be said about the great Mogol except that he does not know about horses. He even went from Milan to Rome on horseback. But not only that. The horse recurs (and runs) in much of his work. As if it were a literary topos.

Starting with the horse from Impressioni di settembre, of course. Which stretches its neck, stands still, but then sees me when I (the man searching for himself) take a step and it has already escaped, disappearing into the fog before the sun (through the fog) filters through.

But in general, the horse expresses that idea of uncompromising freedom that, in the great Mogol’s poetics, is embodied by a very varied fauna. It’s impossible not to mention - in this regard - the spring deer and the cliff seagull, emblems of that wild and primitive vitality that awaits only to be unleashed in the cathartic and fateful moment of rebirth.

But the mare from Fiocco rosso is, much more essentially, a mare to ride.

And to fix your gaze upon.

Finally take a bite to straighten that round curve that inflames desire in the galloping male behind her, while a voluptuous atmosphere (punctuated by the slapping and insistent bass) seems to envelop predator and prey.

What a desire you have, what a desire I have (u-ho-u-ho-u-ho-u-ho).

Body language does not lie, and the Italian stallion is cunning enough to pick up on its signals. In particular, that ambiguous and mysterious depression above the buttock that is as deep as the pleasure you give me.

And pleasure flares up, symbolically transformed into sound by the guitar solo by the legendary Phil Palmer (the same of the pink ribbon, but what do I need to tell you).

Before the stallion finds himself among the hay (out of breath) and realizes that that mare was bread (or rather fodder) for his teeth.

Whew. You made me tired, powerful as you are. You seemed like an easier thing.

Not to mention an excellent bet at the Totip: “Mare, when you run, you never lose”.

What a thoroughbred mare you are. Nothing like the neck-stretching horse of ‘Impressioni di settembre’. Not even the spring deer is worth one of your hooves.

The song thus asserts a profound and universal truth: never take anything for granted. In other words, don’t say cat if you don’t have it in the bag.

Specifically in the equine context, don't say mare if you don't have it in the stable.

“Finally G.B. has found his truest dimension. And above all, he has found the piquancy of Mogol's lyrics that imprint the touch of class and allow him, as an interpreter, to reveal subtle ironies and tendernesses”

“What pleases is G.B.’s (and Mogol’s) ability to transcend the hypertrophies of domestic songmanship and the ability to simultaneously convey to us the taste of the pop song”

“Finally good news on the front of our light music. It is a shame for the Italian song that the meeting between Bella and Mogol happened only now”

(some of the critical judgments reported on the back of G.B.1, the album of ‘Fiocco rosso’)

Here is the song (the only version available on YouTube - the 45 skips a bit at the end, which enhances the horse-galloping effect among the grooves).