By Elena Porciani (Università della Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”)

It was February 1981, and the Sanremo Festival had come down to a head-to-head battle between Loretta Goggi’s “Maledetta primavera” (Evil Spring) and Alice’s “Per Elisa” (For Elisa): between the traditional pop song, performed by an established television show artist, and a song more sensitive to the changing times in European pop, sung by the previous summer’s newcomer who, after years of false starts, had finally found the right mentor in Franco Battiato at EMI.

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