Pooh
Stop

I knew I had arrived at the seaside when the car was filled with the scent of fried foods and lemons, the kinds that fill the underpasses leading to the beach resorts, which we always ran across to avoid hearing the train clattering overhead.

Our house also had a unique fragrance, of Nivea cream, pine shampoo, of inflatable boats poorly cleaned from the previous year's salt and tar, while the sound of wooden clogs on the landings awakened the condominium from its long winter silence.

We would immediately rush to the beach, to count the friends already arrived and check out the new records in the jukebox, the ones that would accompany you all summer long between a game of pinball and ping pong, with the greasy wrapper of focaccia in one hand and a soda with a straw in the other.

The singers were always the same, Gianni Bella, Pupo, Umberto Tozzi, rarely a Santana on special leave, and then there were the indomitable Pooh.

It was the year of Canterò Per Te, and that summer they sang so much that someone, a bit older, actually ended up buying that record.

Thus, I returned from vacation with Stop etched on a Scotch Dynarange that soon would get stuck in the innards of some radio recorder, but at 14 you really learn to appreciate all music, even that of the Pooh, because, in the end, life is still guiding you by the hand.

You will soon learn to choose and to hate
Summer is over.
Listen.
Stop.

Tracks

Caro me stesso mio (Facchinetti-Negrini)
Stagione di vento (Facchinetti-Negrini)
Numero Uno (Facchinetti-D'Orazio)
Vienna (Battaglia-Negrini)
Ali per guardare, occhi per volare (Facchinetti-Negrini)

Canterò per te (Battaglia-Negrini)
Aria di mezzanotte (Facchinetti-Canzian-D'Orazio)
Quasi città (Facchinetti-Negrini)
Gatto di strada (Canzian-Negrini)
Inca (Facchinetti-Negrini)

Line-up

Roby Facchinetti - vocals, piano, keyboard
Dodi Battaglia - vocals, guitar
Stefano D'Orazio - vocals, drums, percussion, flute
Red Canzian - vocals, bass, cello