Quanno Chiove (Remastered 2014)

"‘Quanno chiove’, one of the most famous songs in Neapolitan by Pino Daniele, has a profound and delicate meaning, never explicitly stated in the lyrics recorded in 1980 on the album ‘Nero a Metà.’ The year was 1980, and a 25-year-old Pino Daniele was releasing his third album after the dazzling debut of "Terra mia" (1977) and the confirmation of the self-titled album (which many fans call ‘ore 8’ due to the cover photo, a combo of four pictures of the artist with the time displayed). The third work was called "Nero a metà," and even in the title, it was clear to the Neapolitan music scene whom it paid homage to: the singer of the ‘Showmen,' Mario Musella, who had passed away a few months earlier, a son of Naples on his mother's side and a Native American father in Italy due to the war. Thus, a black man halfway.

«And I feel you when you go down the stairs / You run without looking»: this is the opening of one of the most beautiful songs from that album. It’s called ‘Quanno chiove,’ when it rains. It’s in dialect, actually in the Neapolitan language. Not everyone knows that those delicate words, like poetic eyes, sweet but never pitying, resting among the alleys washed by the water «che te 'nfonne e va» (that wet you and goes down) on the profile of a woman, told the story of a prostitute. Yes, a prostitute who spends the whole morning preparing, her high-heeled footsteps distinctly tapping on the lava-stone pavement of the streets of Naples. A girl like many others. Who then works and «nun rire cchiù,» doesn’t smile, can’t smile anymore given the work she does.

A sweet arpeggio, almost a lullaby, one of Pino Daniele's songs most loved by young people fiddling with the guitar for its ease in chords. Over forty years since its recording, "Quanno chiove" remains undoubtedly one of the masterpieces of the Neapolitan artist, who passed away on January 4, 2015. It has been interpreted by female voices like Mina and Giorgia, but also by an emotional Eros Ramazzotti that night at the San Paolo stadium in the summer of 1994 during the legendary concert alongside Daniele and Lorenzo Jovanotti, a massive event that took place just a few weeks after the death of Massimo Troisi.

And I feel you when you go down the stairs
You run without looking
And I see you every day
Laughing as you go to work
But then you don’t laugh anymore.
And far away it goes
All life like this
And you hold back not to die.
And wait for it to rain
The water wets you and goes
So the air must change
But then when it rains
The water wets you and goes
So the air must change
It gets dark and the moon speaks
And you live to feel
For you everything can speak
But you’re left with the words
And the shame meets you
But passing by someone
Turns their eyes and goes away.
And wait for it to rain
The water wets you and goes
So the air must change
But then when it rains
The water wets you and goes
So the air must change
And wait for it to rain
The water wets you and goes
So the air must change
But then when it rains
The water wets you and goes
So the air must change.