Negramaro
Meraviglioso

You are in class, at the lectern is the professor, a guy with a shaved head, short, with a Puglian accent, inviting you to pay attention, not to lose concentration. He is about to show you the practical act of “How to Ruin a Beautiful Song”.

It must be like this, you know? Songs must be artistically ruined. You can't ruin them just like that, randomly, you have to know where to intervene, seriously, like a good surgeon who knows how to kill a patient on the operating table with a few skillful moves.

The case at hand is the cover by Negramaro released in 2008 of a famous 1968 song by Domenico Modugno: “Meraviglioso”. It's an emblematic case, I would like to focus on both the flaws of the cover and the characteristics of the original song, because the Negramaro method of “ruining a beautiful song” is a heavily (ab)used method in the world of music, and I could cite dozens and dozens of cases like this, but here we reach excellence, the level is really high (low).

The original song is a classic well-made song, the kind with a sensible text, a story with a beginning and an end (I wouldn't want to but I must mention the quality of the texts of many hits today, often consisting of catchphrases, “from Facebook,” I would add, pasted one after another without a logical thread). It's the story of a man, desperate, on the verge of suicide, who is saved by “an angel dressed as a passerby” who opens his eyes to the beauty of the world, of life, “even your pain may later appear wonderful.” A text that is a masterpiece.

Another aspect, the song is well-made also because music and lyrics go hand in hand, the "mood" of the text has its counterpart in the musical accompaniment. For example, when Modugno performs the part in F# minor, the one about the suicide attempt, to be clear, the tone of the music is dramatic, in harmony with the text, the voice is broken by despair. Then when it's the moment for the chorus, with the passerby opening the protagonist's eyes to the beauty of life, the style changes, it's more lively, positive (it transitions to F# major), you really understand the meaning of those words, you can “see” from the almost fatherly but playful tone of voice that this angel is truly capable of pulling him out of his despair; they are heartfelt words, but you perceive a lightness, a way of seeing life so gentle that even you, who are certainly not about to jump off the overpass, feel you can appreciate it a little more. You seem to see him, that passerby, with a smile full of understanding, he takes your face in his hands, looks you in the eyes and says “but look around you” and points out any small thing that surrounds you, that you can no longer appreciate, the fact is that you have nothing in focus anymore, because sometimes pain puts everything out of focus, you see only yourself and your small great suffering as if it were the entire universe, and someone comes and tells you: look, you have so much to live for. As banal as you want, obvious, but it's a small miracle.

Now take all of this, crumple it up and throw it away. Because exactly 40 years later, Negramaro arrives with their cover, an extraordinary success in sales and criticism, acclaimed and award-winning.

The tone of their piece is dictated by Sangiorgi's vocality, the band's accompaniment always slavishly follows the leader, confined in that direction, without a spark, an idea that gives meaning, a turn, a key reading. Pure and simple helpless accompaniment. Sangiorgi's singing is always stubbornly on melodramatic tones, in constant alternation between the catacombal whisper and the desperate scream of a deserted lover. There's never a hint of a fade between the two extremes, he alternates in every piece with the same ease whispers and desperate screams. Thus he draws applause, certainly, but as in this case, he manages to degrade and demean anything.

The chorus, when he says " but look around you, what gifts you have been given...” pause, takes a breath and belts out " they invented the seeeaaa for you” with a tone you'd almost say is angry, is the emblematic example of how easy it is to do a cover, and how difficult it is to restore the original spirit, perhaps revised and corrected, but not overturned, defaced, or distorted in such a manner.

I'm just saying that if I had been that man, on the verge of jumping / not jumping, do it / not do it, if I had been on that ledge, at Sangiorgi's exhortation I certainly would've thrown myself headlong into the waves.