Luciano Ligabue
Buon compleanno Elvis

THE REVIEW

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ELVIS! (1995) 8.5/10

This is not a review. This is my life (just to stay in theme with Ligabue).

“Buon compleanno, Elvis!” came out in 1995, but it was such a meteoric success (over 1 million copies sold) that in 1997, with the release of “Su e giù da un palco” (and the resulting concert at San Siro, the first of many, too many, by Liga), it was still in the charts. In July 1997, I was at summer camp in Cesenatico and I was 12 years old. A guy, one Luca, same age as me, let me listen to it on his walkman. I liked it—I'd go on liking it in the future—but I liked the sound; as for what he was saying exactly, I wasn’t sure, but it “grabbed me”. Once back home, I forced my dad to buy the music cassette: it would become the album I listened to the most in my life.

In 1998, I was in Albenga on holiday in August with my family, as I had been every year since I was one. I wore out the music cassette, the tape kept skipping: my dad had to buy me another one.

Back in high school, during religion class, I asked my teacher (poor woman!) if “Il cielo è vuoto o il cielo è pieno”. She looked at me strangely and said she didn’t know. I think it was from that moment I began to doubt the Almighty. The first crushes, the first summer holidays with friends, when you feel “Leggero, nel vestito migliore”. That time in Barcelona we made a mess in the hotel (better not go into details), but the next summer, in Liguria, by the sea, I felt like someone “con in testa un po' di sole, ed in bocca una canzone”. Happy, and that's it.

At night we caused havoc, and we did plenty of it—after all, “I ragazzi sono in giro”, until, at University (Cultural Heritage), I discovered there was more to music, and thanks to some female classmates (more classmates than mates, classmates in every sense) I discovered the music of the ‘60s and ‘70s, especially foreign stuff (the Italian singer-songwriter kind I already knew). I became a beatlesomane (a word that doesn’t exist, but I think it explains everything perfectly) and I understood “La forza della banda”. On graduation day, July 11th 2011, I was happy because I could, mentally, say screw you to “quel vecchio professore che ti ha rubato tempo con la sua mediocrità”.

The first jobs. My very first job was as a photographer for models. In Milan, that’s not so rare. I worked 4 hours a day in the afternoons. Fun. Then I moved on to call centers, and I wasn’t sure if I was “Vivo, morto o X”. I put in the effort and qualified as a teacher. I worked in a high school for only two years, because in the meantime, thanks to an internship at a well-known publishing house, I got called to write music and, especially, film reviews. Nice. I did a few interviews with people more or less famous and realized that “Non dovete badare al cantante”. But love played a trick on me, and from Milan I moved to Bologna. I stayed only a short while, a year and a half. But I finally understood the meaning of “Rane a Rubiera blues”, and some “Certe notti” I spent my time under the porticoes heading towards San Luca. Then love ended, and I returned to Milan. But another love began. This time “seasoned” with marriage. I changed jobs and “put my life in order” as a real estate agent. On weekends we’d spend our days on the Ticino, sometimes “Seduto in riva al fosso”. I loved her dearly (she was my only love), but I also discovered something called “disturbo schizzoaffettivo” (I was already familiar with bipolar disorder), and being by her side wasn’t easy, telling her over and over “Quella che non sei, quella che non sei non sarai a me basterà”, also because there was always “un posto dentro te in cui fa freddo, è il posto in cui nessuno è entrato mai”. But, above all, thank you “per la vita che hai passato”: that will never be forgotten.

Last year, everything fell apart towards the end of the year and I quit my job. At the start of the year we got divorced. I got back in touch with the people at the publishing house, they told me I could come back even after so many years. Excellent. In the meantime, in 2018, my dad found out he had cancer, and passed away after 6 months. I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye: “Hai un momento, Dio?” I asked at the time. But whether the sky was empty or full, it never answered me. Then, I don’t know why, I think how in 2027 it will be 50 years since Elvis’s death. Wow.