(Neaples, 1958 -)
By Eleonora Buonocore (University of Calgary)
Nino Buonocore is a Neapolitan singer-songwriter most famous for his romantic songs and his soft, catchy sound. His real name is Adelmo Buonocore, and he was born in Naples on July 26, 1958.
He began his career in 1978 with an early album that he produced by himself, titled Sferisterio, and he continued with three albums released by RCA (Acida [Acid]], 1980, Yaya [Yaya], 1982, Nino in copertina [Nino on the Cover], 1983). Initially, his sound was likened to the British New Wave (Deregibus, 142).
Rosanna: the first success
Nino Buonocore’s most famous songs deal with the topic of love, and as a singer he can be considered a minstrel of the Italian canzone d’autore. The wider Italian public came to know him through his song “Rosanna,” which he presented at the 1987 Sanremo Music Festival and which he later included on his album Una città tra le mani (A City in My Hands, 1988).
The song declares the protagonist’s feelings for the woman named in the title, without ever mentioning the word “love.” The narrator states that he lives day to day without thinking about the future, and that he finds meaning in his life simply by greeting this woman.
Rosanna
io vivo come te
fuori da ogni domani
dentro un semplice “Ciao, come stai?”
(Rosanna|
I live like you do
outside of any tomorrow
inside a simple
“Hello, how are you?”)
The woman’s greeting as the only sign the poet-singer needs to receive from her is a well-known topos in Italian literature since its inception, and it likely calls to mind the Dolce stil novo’s poetics of praise and Dante’s famous sonnet XXVI from the Vita nuova, “Tanto gentile,” which states “Tanto gentile e tanto onesta pare / la donna mia quand’ella altrui saluta” (“My lady looks so gentle and so pure / When yielding salutation by the way [tr. Rossetti]), emphasizing the act of salutation. Buonocore’s song also continues along these same lines of a poetics of praise, as the author extolls the beauty of Rosanna, described as “bella da vivere / da morire” (“beautiful to live for, to die for”), with a poetic juxtaposition of life and death, an oxymoron which underscores the contradiction inherent in the experience of love.
The next stanza opens with an echo of a very famous love song from the late 1970s, “Albachiara” by Vasco Rossi (1979). Buonocore’s first-person lyrics—“Cammino piano per non far rumore / Non ti sveglierò” (“I walk softly so I won’t make noise / I won’t wake you”)—signal a change in the character who pointedly avoids making noise, but the echo of Vasco’s song is notable and points the listener towards an intimate moment, where the two lovers share a space so small and are so close that they risk waking each other up.
Buonocore deepens this feeling of intimacy in the following lines, where the grammatical anacoluthon literally brings the poet inside all that Rosanna is, as is reaffirmed in the following line when Nino sings “Mi ritrovo in te” (“I find myself in you”).
In the second part of the song, the author introduces the theme of life passing by and of memories that remain, and he asks the woman to give him her colours with the poetic expression “un arcobaleno di cose semplici” (“a rainbow of simple things”). The metaphor here visually depicts the woman’s complexity, containing within herself a multiplicity of nuances. Again, the text emphasizes the contradictory and antithetical nature of love, highlighted in the refrain:
Se pure diventassi il mio dolore
io non ti sveglierò
(Even if you become my sorrow
I will not wake you up)
Even if the woman brings pain upon the author, he still won’t wake her up; he will not force her to awaken in order to share his reality. The song concludes on this note, an intimate yet quiet moment in which the singer chooses to believe in the woman and respect her wishes by letting her sleep.
This song immediately became quite a hit and contributed to the success of the album Una città tra le mani (A City in My Hands) released in 1988. This album marks a change in Nino’s musical tastes, which take on a jazz-like quality, and it features one of the last official performances of the famous trumpet player Chet Baker (Deregibus, 142).
“Scrivimi” (“Write to Me”):
Nino Buonocore quickly became known for his musical abilities and perhaps for his peculiar, quiet singing style and his “French r” (very noticeable in “Rosanna”) which enhances the charm of his voice.
All these features are showcased in Nino’s greatest hit, the song “Scrivimi” (“Write to Me”), which he presented in 1990 at the Cantagiro where it took second place, and at the Festivalbar where it placed third.
“Scrivimi” (“Write to Me”) declares the meta-literary intent of its author right from the very title. It is a song about the power of writing to express feelings that cannot be voiced in any other way. It is above all a love song, in which the narrator asks his love interest to write to him.
The song begins in the autumn, “quando il vento avrà spogliato gli alberi” (“when the wind strips the trees bare”), with a pointed inversion of the literary trope typical of medieval love poetry where love typically flowers in the spring. The woman doesn’t want to talk (“poca voglia di parlare” [“you don’t feel much like talking”]) and feels vulnerable to the indifference of others. The narrator pleads to her both to write him and not to forget him.
The narrator addresses the difficulties of expressing oneself, specifically telling his romantic interest that he will be able to understand her even if she cannot find the right words to convey her feelings (“And if you do not know how to say it / If you cannot find the words.”) She does not need to use words to communicate with him.
The protagonist further stresses this point by stating that he will be content even with a simple hello. This verse insists again on the medieval literary topos which sees the beloved’s salutation as a portent of salvation and as the only thing the lover needs, a theme prevalent in the poems of Guido Guinizzelli, Dante and Petrarch. The lyrics specifically say “un semplice saluto” (“a simple salutation”), playing on the Italian word “salute” which carries within its etymology the ambiguity between “salute,” or bodily health, and “salvezza,” the salvation of the soul, as we find in Dante’s Vita nuova XXVI. This simple hello is a way to bring two people closer, as the singer continues: “ci vuole poco, per sentirsi più vicini” (“it doesn’t take much to feel closer”).
The second part of the song marks a change in tone. First, it takes place in the spring, when there is more light and “le giornate ormai si allungano” (“the days are already growing longer”), and here the woman takes an active role, wishing to express herself by singing—“se hai voglia di cantare” (“if you feel like singing”):
Quando il cielo sembrerà più limpido
le giornate ormai si allungano
ma tu non aspettar la sera
se hai voglia di cantare
scrivimi
anche quando penserai che ti sei innamorata
tu non ti dimenticare mai di me
(When the sky looks clearer
the days are already growing longer
but don’t wait for the evening
if you feel like singing
write to me
even when you think
that you have fallen in love
don’t you ever forget about me)
The narrator’s plea for the woman to express herself and write to him combines with his plea that she not forget about him. In addition, his request is qualified by a concessive clause: do it, even if she thinks she has fallen in love with another unnamed person who is probably not the singer/author. What matters is the connection with the woman, as is stated in the refrain: he only cares that she thinks about him for a moment. No physical presence or touch is required.
The understated romanticism of this song taps into the well-established tradition of love poetry such as the medieval trope of the amor de lonh (love from afar), in which the lover is physically distant from the beloved, and they can only be close in their thoughts.
Writing to each other then becomes the best way to create closeness, and the vagueness of the woman’s object of affection leaves a door open for the narrator’s hopes and confers a melancholic yet positive vibe to the entire song.
“Scrivimi,” which was included on the album Sabato, domenica e lunedì (Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, 1990) was translated into many languages and enjoyed a vast and enduring success.
Buonocore continues his musical career to this day, although with a lesser success than in his early years. Since 2000 Nino has acquired a jazzier sound. He considers himself part of the Neapolitan musical scene, and in 2015 he even co-wrote and sang a duet with the famous singer-songwriter Enzo Gragnaniello with the song “Quale futuro vuoi” (“What Future Do You Want”), which was included on Gragnaniello’s 2015 album Misteriosamente (Mysteriously). More recently, Buonocore has released his first live album, which presents jazz versions of his most famous songs (In Jazz Live: Nino Buonocore, 2021) and the public can still enjoy his unique voice in his live concerts.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Deregibus, Enrico. Dizionario Completo Della Canzone Italiana. Giunti Editore, Firenze 2006.