AA.VV.
Xanadu

AA.VV. Xanadu -1980

The other Sunday, while channel surfing, what do I see late at night? Xanaduuuuuuu, the last great Hollywood musical,
featuring Olivia Newton-John and the music of ELO. The ELO spaceship lands in the arms of Olivia who dances on a disco cube... Newton-John is portrayed in the film as an improbable icon between art deco and Leonardo’s Mona Lisa. The spaceship brings the divine gifts of the Orchestra, with a sequence of super-hit songs among pop-discobeatle tracks, including I’m alive, the title track, All over the world, which somewhat echoes the recent hit Last Train to London, followed by the soulful Don’t Walk Away, covered as Mi mancherai by our own Marcella Bella for a TV theme song. Among the other authors stands out the multifaceted genius of John Farrar, who writes the big radio hit Magic, sung by Olivia. Then there’s Sir Cliff Richard in another duet with Bee Gees-like reminiscences, Suddenly. Next are the punkish The Tubes for the duetted track Dancin, and finally Whenever You’re Away From Me - with Olivia Newton-John/Gene Kelly.

Ah, beloved and hated cathode ray tube, like a hermetic caduceus with Olivia you showed me an old flame of mine who looked so much like her, Nicole, Nicole Nelson, if my memory doesn’t deceive me: these little blonde American girls, all in series like California plums. Nicole - call me Nikki - with whom I had a summer fling during her Roman holidays, many moons ago. Met, or rather picked up, in Piazza Navona. Well, that’s how we spent the summer, me and a guitarist friend called the Duranian, we would stroll around downtown Rome and play in search of fortune. Departure at 10 PM from his house at Trastevere station, railway houses, and with two moves a triumphant entrance almost inside the fountain of the piazza with a maroon-red Fiat 127 - today with the prohibitions, it’s instant arrest for terrorism; our typical summer attire was new wave camouflage without excess: otherwise the alternative was dull grey office worker, metaller, yuppie, or simply suburban ruffian.

EVERY NIGHT was starring: black tube pants, or strictly non-branded jeans, colorful jacket with sleeves pulled up - clip style Rio if we really wanted to be sharp, more often very glittery shirts - blue, red or purple, opened very coatt in front, accessorized with bandanas; it took courage: we had it. Nikki, a healthy girl with dancer’s warm legs, I wanted to marry her, before she returned to the Big Apple. How many times did we write to each other, and she said come and visit while I was meanwhile entangled with a jerk for 3 years straight. There was an ocean in between, but I should have just gone to her. I can only hope, like in the last scene of Xanadu, to meet her by chance under a neon sign and ask her “excuse me, can I talk to you for a moment?” I would have so many things to tell her...