Born Domenica Bertè in Bagnara Calabra (Reggio Calabria), 1947-1995.
By Eleonora Buonocore, University of Calgary
Beginnings
Her real name was Domenica Bertè, and she was the older sister of the also famous singer songwriter Loredana Berté. The Berté family consisted of an austere father, a high school teacher, a more approachable mother, who was an elementary school teacher and four sisters: the eldest, Leda born in 1946, Domenica born on September 20 1947, her sister Loredana, who shared both her birthday (9/20/1950) and her passion for music, and the youngest, Olivia.
Domenica was known in the family by the nickname Mimì, and it is exactly with her name, Mimì Bertè that she began her musical career, in the early 1960s. Short after the birth of Domenica the family had relocated to the Marche region, in Porto Recanati, a location by the sea, and its exactly in the local discos that a very young Mimi started singing in public, and enjoyed an early success due to her beautiful and distinctive voice, who had been trained since she was 6 years old. In October 1961 she even persuaded her mother to accompany her on a trip to Milan with the specific intent to convince a record company of her talent. (Mandelli, 11 and 15)
Surprisingly, Mimì managed to get a contract with Carlo Alberto Rossi of Car-Juke Box, and through the good will of this agency the following summer (1962) she began singing in some clubs in Rimini. Given the success of these first experiences the record company decided to launch her as one of the yè-yè girls that were in fashion at the time, despite the fact that that happy and carefree style hardly matched the girl’s vocal range.
First successes
In 1963, at first Mimì recorded some Italian covers of English language songs, such as “I miei baci non puoi scordare” (the Italian version of “You Can never Stop me Loving You” by Johnny Tillotson) and “Lontani dal resto del mondo” (a cover of “I Want to Stay Here”by Steve and Eydie). In this time, she also participated to two musical festivals, in Pesaro first and then in Bellaria in 1964, winning one and obtaining a podium in the other, thanks to her unique voice. In 1964 she also recorded her first original song “Il magone” (“the stomach knot”) written by Rino Cardi and Gianni Guarnieri. The second time that the record was published it featured Mimi’s first originally written text and music, in collaboration with Carlo Alberto Rossi, entitled Come puoi farlo tu (As you can do it), in which the young singer lamented the possibility of being left by her love interest (Coccoluto, 13-16). Despite her initial success Mimì struggled with record sales and in 1966 she changed record companies and signed a contract with Durium house, but still she had trouble earning a living with her singing. She resorted to taking other jobs, while moving to Rome with her sister Loredana. The two sisters began singing together and quickly formed a friendship with Renato Fiacchini, who later became the famous singer Renato Zero. The three young singers even formed a trio briefly in 1968, but this experience did not become formalized as Mimì signed a solo contract with Esse Record from Milan. Unfortunately, though, her career at the end of the 60s did not take off, and instead in the summer of 1969 Domenica had her first great set back, which led to her first break from the musical scenes.
While Mimì was singing and partying in Sardinia in August of 1969 she was arrested for illegal possession of hashish. At that time even mere possession of illegal substances would warrant a drug charge arrest and she was imprisoned awaiting trial in Tempio Pausania for four months (Mandelli, 26-30 and Coccoluto, 21-23). Despite being acquitted of all charges, experiencing jail changed Mimì, and when she got out, she was ready to change her musical persona as well. She had reconnected with her family, both her mother and father, who had split up earlier, and she was more influenced by Jazz singers, like Ella Fitzgerald and Aretha Franklin when she performed with a trio, led by the pianist Toto Torquati in Rome.
Mia Martini from “Padre Davvero” to “Piccolo Uomo”
Yet her true change and her return to the scenes was yet to come. After a chance encounter in February 1971, Mimì began working with the talent scout Alberigo Crocetta, who suggested that she changed her name to something more recognizable in the international scene. Mimì then chose a different name, Mia, in honor of her favorite actress, Mia Farrow, and a different last name Martini, from the famous drink. She also created a stronger look, adding to the typical bowler hat a clownish make up that made her appearance unmistakable. Due to Crocetta’s efforts, the new Mia Martini became one of the most important voices in Viareggio Piper 2000 (summer branch of the famous Piper in Rome) and signed a contract with the big record company Rca. In 1971 Mia also met the then little-known roman singer songwriter Claudio Baglioni, who wrote a few songs for her, among which “Amore Amore un corno!” (“Love… Love Damn It!”) that will be included in Mia Martini’s first album, entitled Oltre la collina (Beyond the Hill). Oltre la collina came out in November 1971 and it was a powerful album, specifically directed to a young Italian public. It featured the intense song, “Padre davvero” (“Father, really”), with which Mimì had won the festival of Music in Viareggio that summer. Although Mia specifically denied autobiographical references, it is hard not to see the connections between the lyrics of “Padre Davvero,” written by Antonello De Sanctis with the music by Piero Pintucci, and Mimì Berté’s troubled family interactions. Yet the song speaks of a generational rift that echoed in many Italian families: “Padre, davvero che cosa mi hai dato?/ Ma continuare è fiato sprecato” (“Father, really, what have you given me? / but to continue is wasting my breath!”), and it included parts that were felt as too risqué and had to be censored for the national network TV (Mandelli, 38-39). The entire album included also an original song by Mia Martini, “Il Prigioniero” (“The prisoner)” written together with Bruno Lauzi, in which the author tried to express some of the emotions felt during her prison stay in Tempio Pausania. The entire album was intense and complex, maybe too much for the Italian public, and it did not enjoy a great success in sales. In 1972 when her manager Crocetta left RCA record company, Mia Martini followed him and became part of the Ricordi company. Through the good offices of Ricordi Mia managed to obtain a song that was perfect for her vocal range and intensity.
In “Piccolo Uomo” (“Little Man”) fear of abandonment and the feeling of loss from a breakup are expressed from a woman’s point of view, even if the song was written by men (Bruno Lauzi for the music and Michelangelo La Bionda for the lyrics). The first-person narration speaks openly of a woman who feels fragile and thinks she’s unable to be alone ((“che giorno triste questo mio/ se oggi tu ti liberi di me/ di me che sono tanto fragile/ e senza te mi perderò…” [“what a sad day is mine/ if today you free yourself of me/ of me, who is so fragile/ and without you I will be lost…”]). On the other hand, the man in the relationship is see as holding all the power, in the refrain it’s specified that he can decide to send her away and that she would literally die without him.
Piccolo uomo, non mandarmi via
io, piccola donna, morirei
(Little man, do not send me away
I, little woman, would die)
The apparent dependence of the female character upon the men reflects the model of society still prevalent in early 1970s Italy, still patriarchal, in which women still needed a man’s support and a man permission to pursue their dreams, and in which still the greatest dream for a woman was supposed to be to find love and get married. Women rights were slowly making their way into society. Divorce had only become a legal option for women on December 1st 1970, while abortion will not even be a legal possibility until 1978.
In “Piccolo uomo”, however, the female voice retains for herself a fundamental right, which empowers her, and turns around the entire tone of the song, from one of desperation to one of hope.
The second stanza evokes a scene in the rain between the two protagonists, in which the woman pictures the man as somewhat upset at her. Yet, thanks to the power of her imagination, she can speak even for him, using a device from classical rhetoric called sermocinatio, which consists in attributing ideas and a voice to another person within a fictional dialogue.
Aria di pioggia su di noi
tu non mi parli più, cos’hai?
Certo se fossi al posto tuo
io so già che cosa ti direi
da sola mi farei un rimprovero
e dopo mi perdonerei…
(There’s a feeling of rain in the air over us/ you don’t talk to me anymore, what’s going on?/ Certainly, if I were in your shoes/ I already know what I would tell you/ I would reprimand myself/and then I would forgive myself…)
This envisioned absolution has a freeing effect. Now that she can let go of her supposed wrongdoing, the protagonist can see herself as having equal value to the man. If she is a little woman, then he is also a little man, and she takes charge of her life, of her own desire to live in a powerful couplet:
Perché io posso, io devo, io voglio vivere
ci riusciremo insieme …
(Because I can, I must, I want to live
we will make it together…)
These two verses at the same time declare the independence and strength of the woman, who asserts her “I” three time, with three modal verbs (I can, I must, I want), and proclaim the need for man and woman to walk side by side, together.
This song opened for Mia the doors of TV and gained her the cover of magazines such as Ciao 2001. That same year she won also Festivalbar, and finally she released her second album Nel Mondo, una cosa (In the world, one thing), which marked Mia’s first success in sales, as well as earning her the critic’s prize for 1972 (Mandelli, p. 40). Thanks to these accomplishments pushed Mia Martini’s fame outside the borders of Italy, since she recorded a French version of “Piccolo Uomo.” That same year she also continued recording new songs, including one that Dario Dario Baldan Bembo and Franco Califano wrote specifically for her, tailoring it to her experiences.
A complex musical career
This is the genesis of “Minuetto” (“Minuet”), a masterpiece of the Italian song, which tells the story of a woman involved in a complicated love story, unfulfilled by her man but unable to leave him. This new song brought Mia Martini’s true triumph, as she won Festivalbar for the second year in a row (1973), and the single was the second most sold in Italy after Patty Pravo’s “Pazza Idea.” The album including “Minuetto,” her third, entitled Il giorno dopo (The day after) was released in the spring of 1973. It featured “Picnic,” the Italian version of “Your Song” by Elton John and Signora (Lady), an adaptation of “Señora “by Joan Manuel Serrat. The record quickly became a hit, enjoying a success of sales both in Italy and abroad. In May of 1974 Mia released her fourth album È proprio come vivere (It’s exactly like living), which included songs such as “Inno” (“Hymn”), “Un’età” (“An Age”), and “Luna bianca” (“White Moon”), with the lyrics by Maurizio Piccoli and the music by Dario Baldan Bembo. It also featured a song with a Greek text, “Agapimu” (“My Love”), which Mia Martini co-wrote with Giuseppe Conte, also for the music by Baldan Bembo. This album was welcomed favorably by both critics and public and Mia Martini was awarded the Gold Record recognition that year. The following year was one of great changes in Mia Martini’s career. First, she recorded the album Sensi e Controsensi (Senses and Countersenses) which included important songs on the unequal relationship between men and women such as “Padrone” (“Master”), written by Massimo Cantini and Franca Evangelisti, and “Volesse il cielo” (“If the Heaven Wished”), the Italian version of “Au que me dera” by Vinícius de Moraes, translated by Sergio Bardotti. Thanks to the success of these albums, Mia Martini’s popularity grew, and she was elected “Singer of the Year” for 1975 by the Italian magazine TV Sorrisi e Canzoni, together with artists such as Claudio Baglioni.
1975 was also the year in which Ricordi decided to change Mia’s regular authors and collaborators, and the next Album, Un altro giorno con me (Another day with me), according to Coccoluto shows a lack of conviction and homogeneity (Coccoluto p. 56). It was still a good success, and it included songs like “Malgrado ciò” (“Despite That”) by Maurizio Piccoli, and an homage to Martini’s Calabria, “Veni sonne di la muntagnella” (“Sleep Comes from the Little Mountain”), a lullaby in Calabrese dialect.
Mia Martini considered this her worst album and despite having to pay a heavy penalty for breaking up her contract with Ricordi, she left the recording house in order to be free to collaborate with whomever she chose. Thus, in 1976 she went back to record with RCA and she released her next album Che vuoi che sia… se t’ho aspettato tanto (What’sthe Big Deal… if I Waited so Much for You), working with artists that she trusted such as Dario Baldan Bembo, Antonio Coggio, Amedeo Minghi and Mango. This album was widely distributed abroad, and it bolstered Mia’s international reputation. In 1977 Mia was the Italian representative at the Eurovision Song Contest, singing the piece “Libera” (“Free”) by Fabrizio and Albertelli, a song that spoke of women’s liberation and the possibility to decide what to be. In 1977 she also won the World popular song Festival Yahama in Tokyo and in September she published her 8th album Per Amarti (For loving you).
That year love entered abruptly in Mia Martini’s life when she met the singer songwriter Ivano Fossati, who collaborated with her to Per Amarti (For loving you). In 1978 Mia Martini left RCA record company and chose to work with Wea and to collaborate more closely with Fossati. Thus, in 1979 came out her next album Danza (Dance), in which Fossati wrote all the songs, lending album a strong coherence. Despite the success of this collaboration, Mia ended up breaking her contract with Wea as well, as she was seeking more control over her artistic life and needed time to transform herself into a true singer songwriter. In addition, she had to have a surgical procedure to her vocal cord in the early 80s and she needed to recover.
Afterwards, she wrote, recorded and published with the small recording company DDD an album that consisted completely of her songs and whose title was simply Mimì (1981). It is a very personal album, in which Mia announces her return to singing after the surgery, with the song “Sono tornata” (“I am Back”), and talks about her love life, such as in the song “E sono ancora qui” (And I am Still Here), “Del mio amore” (“Of my Love”), and “Ti regalo un sorriso” (“I Gift You with a Smile”). This album also included the song “Parlate di me” (“You Talk about Me)”, in which the author denounces all the gossip about her by people who do not know her. This piece is a polemic reaction to the smearing campaign against Mia Martini that had begun a decade before and that tried to paint the singer as a bringer of bad luck, or of the evil-eye, (in Italian a “jettatrice”).
Mia was always above these base rumors (“sono di plastica infrangibile, modello scomponibile” “ I am made of unbreakable plastic, a modular model”) but eventually her love story with Ivano Fossati was coming to an end and the effects of the smearing campaign were weighing down her reputation. In 1983 Mia Martini retired from the public eye after publishing one last goodbye album, Miei compagni di viaggio (My fellow travelers), entirely recorded live.
Mia Martini did not perform anymore for the second part of the 80s. Until in 1988 she met the Neapolitan singer songwriter Enzo Gragnaniello, who asked her to interpret some of his songs. At the same time in December of 1988 Mia survived a car accident and somehow these two events together prompted her to go back to singing professionally.
Return and “Almeno tu nell’universo”
The year 1989, and specifically the single “Almeno tu nell’universo,” (“At Least You in the Universe”), marks Mia Martini’s return to the great public and her renewed success. This song, written by Maurizio Fabrizio with lyrics by Bruno Lauzi, was performed by Mia during her big stage return at San Remo’s musical festival. While the song did not win (it only placed 9th), it did receive the critics award again, and it quickly became a hit. The song begins by lamenting how people are unable to create long-term relationships.
Sai, la gente è strana:
prima si odia e poi si ama,
cambia idea improvvisamente,
prima la verità, poi mentirà lui
senza serietà, come fosse niente…
(You know, people are strange
before they hate each other and then they love each other
they change their mind suddenly
before the truth then he will lie
without honesty as if it were nothing…)
The sudden shift between love and hate is attributed to an equally sudden changing of the mind of people, and specifically to the men in the relationship chi are accused of lying easily, without thinking about the consequences. A similar instability joined with superficiality, is the topic of the second stanza, in which people are described as crazy and unsatisfied, following blindly the changing fashions of the world.
Yet this is a song about hope. The singing voice places her hopes in a single person, a not-specified masculine you, who embodies the qualities that she cannot find in anybody else. This mysterious person is in fact qualified in the refrain as being different; he is the only person in the universe that offers a point of reference to the singer, who compares him first in a metaphor to the sun, and then in a wonderful simile to a diamond that shines in the middle of her heart. What makes this person different is the fact that he is not as changeable as the general people of the first stanzas.
Tu, tu che sei diverso
almeno tu nell’universo
un punto sei, che non ruota mai intorno a me,
un sole che splende per me soltanto
come un diamante in mezzo al cuore!
(You, you that are different
at least you in the universe
you will not change
tell me that you will always be sincere
and that you will love me for real,
more, more, more…)
He is specifically qualified as someone who will not change and whose love will be pure, as his words will be truthful. This truth is what the singing voice needs to overcome her fears, which are evoked in the last stanza, in which she finally admits to being part of the general people, la gente.
People are alone, she laments, and they console each other as much as they can. Here the song shifts abruptly from people to the mind of the singer (“to avoid that my mind/ will lose itself in conjectures”), as if to include the singer in the general collective noun mentioned above. The lyrical I is afraid of losing herself in her fears, even if she recognizes that her conjectures are probably based on nothing. Yet it is only this new different man, unchangeable and unmovable like the sun, hard and durable like a diamond that can bring her true love and assuage her fears.
“Gli uomini non cambiano”
Mia Martini’s career arch reached a full circle in 1992 when she again performed a single during the Sanremo festival. This song, entitled “Gli uomini non cambiano” (“Men Do Not Change”), brings back some of Mia Martini’s fundamental themes, namely family struggles of women trying to please and change the men in their lives. The lyrics, written by male authors (Giancarlo Bigazzi, Marco Falagiani and Beppe Dati) but tailored for Mia Martini’s character, start with the singing voice reminiscing about her childhood love for a hard-to-please father:
Sono stata anch’io bambina
di mio padre innamorata
per lui sbaglio sempre e sono
la sua figlia sgangherata
ho provato a conquistarlo
e non ci sono mai riuscita
e ho lottato per cambiarlo
ci vorrebbe un’altra vita.
(Even I have been a child
in love with my father
for him I am always wrong and I am
his sloppy daughter
I have tried to conquer him
and I have never succeeded
and I have fought to change him
it would take another lifetime.)
The feeling of inadequacy of the young daughter, who feels that she is always wrong and sloppy, determine her desire to conquer the love of the father and to change him. Yet this desire is destined to remain unfulfilled, as it would take another lifetime to achieve it. Such an impossibility creates a hostile climate in the family, which is the topic of the next stanza, and it eventually leads the daughter to leave the family with the first available man, even if he is a liar. The song denounces the effects of sexism within Italian families even in the 1990s, and it underlines how little the social climate has changed in the last twenty-one years that separate “Gli uomini non cambiano” from “Padre davvero”, as patriarchal schemes that are perpetuated within the family structure tend to be reenacted by the next generation. The imbalance results from the fact that men are perceived as unchangeable, “men do not change” indeed, yet they are able to make women change for them. This inequality is the reason why those patriarchal patterns re-emerge within love relationships, as the song denounces:
Gli uomini non cambiano
prima parlano d’amore
e poi ti lasciano da sola
gli uomini ti cambiano
e tu piangi mille notti di perché
invece, gli uomini ti uccidono
e con gli amici vanno a ridere di te.
(Men don’t change
first they talk about love
then they leave you
instead, men kill you
and you cry a thousand nights about why
instead, men kill you
and they go laugh about you with their friends.)
Women cry and ask themselves the reason of why men treat them so badly, while men are portrayed as violent and dangerous (“they kill you”) and superficial, since they laugh with their friends about the women. Martini’s words are terribly timely in these years in which multiple homicides of women by their partners are on the spotlight in the Italian newspapers. Moreover, what emerges from these last lines is another component of male supremacy. Men are powerful also because they have support groups of friends, why women tend to be alone and isolated. This is a truth that women learn only with time and the singing voice clarifies this fact at the end of the last stanza, that describes the sorrow of a woman after her first time. The sexual act is described almost as an assault, as the girl is left “in a corner and defeated.” She was deprived of an active role in the intercourse, while the man takes the lead without paying attention to his partner’s needs (“he did everything and did not understand/ why I was still and quiet”) and without even trying to understand why the woman was not more involved. Experience though makes women though and teaches them about the dynamic of men in groups, as it is explicitly mentioned:
ma ho scoperto con il tempo
e diventando un po’ più dura
che se l’uomo in gruppo è più cattivo
quando è solo ha più paura.
(but I understood with time,
becoming a bit tougher,
that if a man is more cruel in a group,
he is more afraid when he is alone.)
Men are not invincible, they can also feel afraid when lonely. And women who understand can regain part of their power in the relationship. Yet the next stanza emphasizes again the reluctance to change in the masculine universe, and how it is connected to an income imbalance that leads to a sort of economy of sex (“they make money to buy you/ and then sell you at night”) and even more sadly to a complete lack of comprehension between the desire of men and those of women (“they give you everything you do not want”). Women also constitute an active part in the perpetuating of patriarchy, as the singer explicitly says:
ma perché gli uomini che nascono
sono figli delle donne
ma non sono come noi
(but why are men born
the sons of women
but they are not like us.)
Men and women are connected, and they are both part of the problem. Is this situation desperate then? Does the song express any possible solution? The end of the last stanza does leave a glimmer of hope. Love is the only force that has the power to right the imbalance between genders and who can thus force men to change, hence love is the only hope that the singing voice can offer to the public.
amore, gli uomini che cambiano
sono quasi un ideale che non c’è
sono quelli innamorati come te.
(love, men who do change
are almost an ideal that does not exist
they are those in love, like you.)
Although men who are open to change are few and almost only a mirage, men become more changeable when they are in love, as the singer tells the unspecified “you” of the song, an idealized male companion who loves her and who is willing to change for her. The critics appreciated this song, yet once again Mia did not win the festival, and only placed second. “Gli uomini non cambiano” was then included in Mia’s next album, Lacrime (Tears) which was released later in 1992 still by Fonit Cetra. Following Sanremo, the album was a hit, and Mia’s popularity was very high, as attested to her participation in many events on TV (Augliera, 81-85). In this same period Mia Martini starts again to collaborate with her sister, Loredana Berté, and the following year the two presented a duet at San Remo’s musical festival, the song “Stiamo come stiamo” (“We Are How We Are”) which was not received well by the juries, and in 1994 Mia did not take part in the festival.
In her last album, La musica che mi gira intorno (The Music that revolves around me, 1994), Mia selects and interprets covers great hits by other authors among whom Ivano Fossati and Lucio Dalla. In this period, Mia had many projects including a new album dedicated to the moon, as she announced to her fan club in March of 1995 (Augliera, 191), and a duet with Mina, which never took place.
Mia Martini’s life and her career ended abruptly on May 12, 1995. The singer was found dead in her apartment, in mysterious circumstances, probably a drug overdose. The mystery surrounding her death, which included some rumors about a possible suicide, immediately denied by her family, only added to her myth, and in 2019 Riccardo Donna directed a movie on her life, entitled Io sono Mia (I am Mia). Since 1996 the San Remo Critics award, which she had won 3 times, was renamed in her honour the Mia Martini Critics Award.
Works Cited
Augliera, Pippo. Mia Martini: La Regina Senza Trono. Guida, 2005.
Coccoluto, Salvatore. Mia Martini: Almeno Tu Nell’universo. Imprimatur, 2015.
Mandelli, Carlo. Mia Martini: Come Un Diamante in Mezzo Al Cuore. Arcana, 2009.
