Italian trip prep? La Canzone del Sole

... Some moments are truly as stunning as they sound.

Imagine the scene: I am 20 years old, I am sitting on the cobblestones of Piazza del Campo in Siena one Spring afternoon and next to me are Italian student friends who are singing songs while strumming guitars.

One song heavy in the rotation is made up mainly of simple Italian words that even this wayward study abroad gal could understand: la canzone (the song) del (of the) sole (sun). La canzone del sole. The song of the sun.

I only had to hear it a few times before it became forever my favorite Italian song and one of the many small facets of Italian life -- one of the many small moments of a semester abroad -- that essentially wedded me to Italy for life (like being the Bride of Christ? Kinda).

There were many afternoons of music in piazza that Spring. And as we sprawled out in Siena's central square (the site of the famed summer horse races), I would ask Nando to play the song over and over, to the point where he had long since tired of it. But for me it conveyed the magic of understanding words in another language, and understanding a pop song, to boot. It's also an awesome love song! A song about faded love, about love's fickleness, about the ways we link ourselves to others -- and then unlink ourselves. 

Fast forward many years, and it's the perfect song to blast on my phone while I walk the dog around my suburban Connecticut neighborhood (Caramel is too rambunctious to risk using headphones -- I need to keep some part of all of my senses trained on her). The perfect song to prepare for my trip to Italy. Indeed the first part of the preparation for any return: immersing myself in memories.

-LYRICS-

Cosa vuol dir "sono una donna, ormai"?
Io non conosco quel sorriso sicuro che hai
Non so chi sei, non so più chi sei
Mi fai paura oramai, purtroppo 

(ENGLISH -- my impromptu translation -- abbi' pazienza, non me ne fido)

What's that mean, 'I'm a woman now'?

I don't know this cocksure smile you have 

I don't know who you are, I don't know you anymore 

Alas now you frighten me

(Sorry but they sound so much better in Italian) 

The artist, Lucio Battisti, remains one of my favorite Italian singers, and a legend among singer-songwriters in Italy (RAI Radio did a wonderful docu-podcast about him that you can find here).

I'm in overdrive preparing for the full immersion that will occur next week when I arrive in Italy -- I'm watching the Italian news on TV (and a soap opera that takes place in Naples), listening to an amazing podcast about overlooked Italian women writers (my specialty) and reading a novel by the stunning and inspiring Sardinian writer Michela Murgia. 

But nothing beats the perfect pop song, especially when it's a song that convinces you to commit your life to studying a foreign language and the incomparable, inimitable people who speak it.

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