Ornella Vanoni & Gino Paoli
Insieme

- "In a café, with rude waiters, for the first time we loved each other..."
- "In a café, without even an ashtray, I felt you tremble and quiver for me"
- "I didn't see your eyes, I didn't see them, I was rather bored.. and I didn't look at you"
- "Yet there, over two cups of poorly-made coffee, everything that matters to us was born"
- "for you..."
- "and for you..."

This album is the recording of a series of live concerts by two ex-lovers who in 1985, after 20 years of separation (and also conflicts, it's rumored that Paoli published risqué photos after Vanoni dumped him) and also artistic maturation, reunite to sing on stage in front of people curious, voyeuristic to grasp something of their tumultuous love (at least one of the two was married).

The songs are more than just songs, they are poems, some of which are famous that the two interpret with an atmosphere of melancholic sweetness, and more than describing, I would say that it’s the lyrics that speak.

It begins with Gino singing about his sea in "Mediterranean" and in the beautiful "Sassi": "stones that the sea has worn down are my words of love for you..." and here a lump already starts forming in the throat and the goosebumps begin to rise.

Ornella completes the goosebump effect with a perfect, precise, confident interpretation of the splendid "Tomorrow Is Another Day": "it's one of those days when I review my whole life... never balanced the accounts, I can say of everything I’ve done my way but with what result I don't know... and experience and disappointments were pointless to me and if I promised, I don't do it anymore... but I've always said in the end I lost again but tomorrow is another day, we'll see". She continues with the very famous "The Appointment" and "Details" that I prefer between the two "it's useless trying to forget for a long time yet in life you will have to look for such small details that you can't yet understand but they still count to say who we are..." and here Ornella's voice is warm and live you hear those imperfections in the voice that make it erotic.

Then follows "More", the piece I find most banal in the whole album but where Ornella and Gino start singing together. Ornella continues with "One More Reason" which I love here for the interpretation but not for the too bombastic arrangement and then with "The Desire to Dream" that Ornella presents as "a song that had no commercial concert patience... but I still love this song very much, I feel good inside it, it's a very small song that talks about a young love...".
Gino returns with "With the Pack" which I adore "I’m not with the pack, not with the others doing good or harm... if I have to live even though I don't know how, I want to live signing with my name" and with "I Know Why Love" here Gino proves to be an excellent singer and not just a poet in words.
Ornella sings Brel "Don't Leave Me - Ne me quitte pas" and here you're screwed: if you’ve suffered from abandonment, listen to this piece...

Then, just to completely torment ourselves with emotions, Paoli comes with "Hotel by the Hour": "I work at the bar of an hourly hotel, bringing up coffee to those making love, the same couples come and go always... but I remained there, there like a fool seeing those two arrive one morning neat... polite.. they looked fake, they looked just like two painted saints..."
Finally, the two make love by singing together "The Sky in a Room" which well, I don’t know how to comment... "when you are here with me... this room has no more walls but trees, infinite trees... when you are here near me this purple ceiling does not exist anymore... I see the sky above us that we stay here abandoned as if there was nothing nothing in the world"...
We cheer up with the joy of the magnificent "The Cat" that Paoli did indeed have as his travel companion

Then Ornella asks Gino "I wonder why the first time I saw you I asked you to write me a song...?" and starts singing divinely "Me in All the World" which is indeed the song that made them known "if you could hear every time I think of you... me and only me could you love... me only me could you see in all the world".

The two then continue with "What's There" "there's that I fell in love with you... there's that now I don't care about all the other people, all the people who are not you..."  and here every comment is superfluous. The climax continues with "How Do You", "how do you talk about love when then, you don’t give all of yourself?… how do you not sell your soul when it’s you who would like to buy it from me".
There is then "Endless" written by Gino especially for Ornella for her big hands "I don't care about the moon, I don't care about the stars... for me, you are moon and stars, for me, you are sun and sky... for me, you are everything, everything I want to have... you are a moment without end, you have no yesterday you have no tomorrow everything is now in your hands, big hands... hands... endless..".

We escape to Brazil with "The Desire, the Madness, the Recklessness, and the Joy", with "Prelude to Samba" and with "Samba for Vinicius": "poet, little poet for love..for joy for pain for ancient liberties... I wonder when I will resemble you..." where okay Paoli is not Vinicus de Moraes but in my opinion, he manages to do well while here it becomes clear how Ornella might be the best Italian interpreter and it goes on with "Sadness" and here we dance..."

The love duet continues with "Yes, I" and with the touching "You'll See, You'll See" by Tenco "when in the evening, I return home... I don’t even feel like talking... don’t look at me with that tenderness as if I were a child, who returns disappointed, yes I know this is not certainly the life I dreamed one day for us, you'll see, you'll see... you'll see it will change, it doesn't matter if tomorrow... but you'll see it will change". Perfect interpretation.
Then follows the warmth and the sun of "The Taste of Salt" a real dedication of love (written by Paoli for Stefania Sandrelli) and then two splendid songs by Luigi Tenco "Faraway Faraway" and "I Fell in Love with You", "and now... I don’t even know what to do, during the day... I regret meeting you... but at night... I come looking for you..."