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Rino Gaetano

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Rino Gaetano

Salvatore Antonio Rino Gaetano (1950 – 1981) was an Italian musician and singer-songwriter. He is famous for his satirical songs and oblique yet incisive political commentary. He is remembered for his raspy voice, for the heavily ironic lyrics of his songs and his social protests. He died in a car accident at age 30. He was a popular and influential figure, widely re-evaluated by the following teen generations.

Quotes

[edit]
  • At this point, I would like to mention an important figure, Aldo Moro, who was born a short distance from here, in Maglie... He is one of the biggest shoe manufacturers, someone who has made shoes for the whole of Italy. [...] I know very well that he uses very clear language, he invented several terms, in fact he is a great philologist, he invented parallel convergences, the economic situation, all these things... Once I heard him make some very strange speeches, such as: “These ferments of dissolution, I would not say iconoclastic but projected towards new hypertrophic temptations that bring me back to a new universal pragmatism and new dimensions yet to be discovered...” and there are all these things that make it impossible to clarify anything at all. It's very distracting, and last year I wrote an even more distracting piece dedicated to these enigmatic figures from the world of politics and other worlds as well. Anyway, tonight I want to dedicate it to this character who has outsmarted the whole of Italy.
  • From the official recording of the concert in San Cassiano (LE), July 25, 1977, available on the CD ‘'Live & Rarities’', 2009; quoted in Freddie Del Curatolo, ‘'Se mai qualcuno capirà Rino Gaetano’' (If anyone ever understands Rino Gaetano), Lit edizioni, 2019, p. 52. ISBN 8862316747
  • Ahó, look, songs are not political texts and I don't give speeches. This is just a joke. In short, for me, ‘'Nuntereggae più’' is the lightest song I've ever written.
  • There are people who are paid to report news, others to keep it hidden, and others to falsify it. I am not paid to do any of these things.
  • (Presenting the song ‘'E io ci sto’') Let's say it's a journey that's a bit rock, a bit rhythmic through Italy, in this Italy that perhaps we want to change, there are good intentions around, bad intentions. It is certainly an intention to change Italy, and I am in favor of this intention.
  • From the Rai television program, ‘'Domenica In’', February 1, 1981. Video available on ‘'Youtube.com’'.
  • Even when I was singing at Folkstudio, I was at the center of certain discussions... in short, many didn't want me to perform my songs because, they said, it seemed like I was making fun of everyone.
  • Andrea Scoppetta, ‘'Sereno su gran parte del paese’', p. 1.
  • The dog[1] has a lot to do with it! The new LP is called ‘'Mio fratello è figlio unico’' (My Brother Is an Only Child), and I think nothing expresses the concept of being marginalized and excluded better than a dog. That is, the dog is the epitome of loneliness. The point is basically that we are all poor dogs, quite detached from human contact and quite lonely... That is, we are basically quite isolated from each other.
  • From ‘'Adesso musica’' 1976; quoted in Andrea Scoppetta, ‘'Sereno su gran parte del paese’', p. 7.
  • I try to write songs inspired by the conversations you can have on the tram, among people, where you immediately realize the state of society. I don't want to teach, I just want to be a chronicler.
  • Andrea Scoppetta, ‘'Sereno su gran parte del paese’', p. 96.
  • I think that Luigi Tenco died of boredom ten years ago because for twenty-eight years Sanremo has always been the same, because there is no real intention to change it.
  • During the 1978 ‘'Sanremo Festival’'; quoted in Silvia D'Ortenzi, ‘'Rare tracce’', p. 93.
  • The effendi is that gentleman who habitually consumes a cup of petroleum at five in the afternoon.
  • From the television program ‘'A Gino Paoli’', August 19, 1977; quoted in Silvia D'Ortenzi, ‘'Rare tracce’', p. 74.
  • The next piece I'm doing [Aida] is the story of the last 50 years in Italy, told through the loves and moods of a woman named Aida.
  • From the television program ‘'A Gino Paoli’', August 19, 1977
  • But the festival remains a catwalk, and like all catwalks, it gives you three minutes to make a speech that you would normally make in a two-hour show. So you have to find a way. For my part, I chose the path of paradox, a bit like Carmelo Bene.
  • It feels like I'm at the Capannelle racecourse! But let me understand... Am I a winning horse or a placed horse?:*During 1978 Sanremo Festival, quoted in Silvia D'Ortenzi, Rare tracce, p. 93.</ref>
  • Old songs don't exist.
  • From the Rai television program, ‘'Domenica In’', November 3, 1979. Video available on ‘'Youtube.com’'.

Video

[edit]
Enzo Siciliano, Quadernetto romano, Radio Rai, 15 July 1978
  • Interviewer: Don't you think that by saying ‘'Nuntereggae più'’ you risk being accused of populism? Gaetano: You risk populism when you attribute the effect of a political rally to a song, not when you think you're writing a song about happy times, evasive [...] My songs are love songs for society.
  • Interviewer: Why do you talk about various social issues in songs that you then describe as ‘evasive’? Gaetano: In my opinion, there are social periods. That is, there was a period of economic boom in Italy, which we all remember, there was Paul Anka who sang ‘'Diana'’, that other guy who sang another funny song, Morandi who sang ‘'Fatti mandare dalla mamma a prendere il latte'’ (Have your mother send you to get the milk), today milk costs too much so you can't talk about these things here. And people talked about love. Instead, since the economic boom is over, there are problems, and clearly I, as a man, am not blind. However, at the same time, I try to write evasive songs, but since I am not blind, I am unfortunately forced to write and sing songs like “Fabbricando Case,” “Stoccolma,” “Dans le château,” and “Gianna.”
  • Interviewer: Who is ‘Gianna’? Gaetano: Gianna is a girl, a fifteen-year-old who faces a serious problem, that is, she says, “What should I do, get involved in politics right away or wait until I become a prima donna and then do it? Gaetano: In the end, this tough struggle is never resolved because she does both things at the same time.
  • Interviewer: How do your songs come about? Gaetano: Let's say I'm in the car, I think of a melody, an aria, and then I try to remember it, to sing it until I'm exhausted, otherwise I'll forget it right away, because, among other things, I have a poor memory. When I get home, I record it, and then this aria will obviously inspire me to write lyrics. [...] Sometimes, however, I'm in the car, I see a beautiful seascape [...] and I decide to describe it in a song. I try to describe the yellow leaves falling and whistling as they fall. And they whistle and go ‘Cip cip’ because they try to imitate the sound of birds. Once I've found these very beautiful, very bucolic phrases, I try to reread them at home with my guitar, looking for musical inspiration in them.
  • Interviewer: So the car is a kind of womb from which you give birth to your songs? Gaetano: Yes, I used to write them on foot, now I write them in the car... They are songs for drivers, much richer in fact.

Censored statements

[edit]
  • Who throws the bomb and who hides their hand.
  • Chi tira la bomba e chi nasconde la mano.
    • from “Ma il cielo è sempre più blu,” 1975, quoted in Silvia D'Ortenzi, “Rare tracce,” p. 38
  • After three days in captivity, he is released, pictured here with his wife and children, and the Hanoi government declares a state of emergency in the areas affected by American bombing.
    • Dopo tre giorni di prigionia viene rilasciato, nella foto con la moglie e i figli, e il governo di Hanoi proclama lo stato d'emergenza nelle zone colpite dai bombardamenti americani.
    • From ‘'Sfiorivano le viole’', 1976, quoted in Silvia D'Ortenzi, ‘'Rare tracce’', p. 65.

Ma il cielo è sempre più blu. Pensieri, racconti e canzoni inedite

[edit]
  • Jannacci was a master, for me he is a true poet, I feel very close to his sensibility. As an author and entertainer, he is truly great. He is someone who knows how to have fun, take things in the right way, and say very interesting things. Take ‘'Giovanni il telegrafista’' (Giovanni the Telegraph Operator), where he comes across as pathetic with extreme elegance. (p. 19)
  • (Talking about ‘'Ma il cielo è sempre più blu’') There are sad or useless images, but never happy ones, because I wanted to emphasize that nowadays there are few happy things, and that is why I consider those who die at work and those who want a raise. Even the line “those who play in Sanremo” is sad and negative, because those who play in Sanremo do not think about those who “live in shacks.”
  • From an interview with “Ciao 2001,” September 1975. (p. 21)
  • The unifying theme of the songs is that of the marginalized, but not so much those traditionally recognized as such, such as the underclass, alcoholics, and drug addicts, but rather ourselves. Few people care about so-called normal people. Just think of an accident on the street, with people running away for fear that the police will waste their time. This is Mio Fratello è Figlio Unico, a person who is, all things considered, perfectly normal. I like to exaggerate things, I love paradoxes. After all, Ionesco, one of my favorite playwrights, is all about paradoxes. To say that my brother is an only child because he is convinced that there are still exploited, underpaid, and frustrated people is not demagoguery.
  • From a 1976 interview. (p. 25)
  • (In the album ‘'My Brother Is an Only Child’') I analyze the situation of the excluded, the marginalized in society, and I conclude that, deep down, we are all only children: relationships of coexistence are dictated solely by duty and not by the pleasure of meeting and collaborating humanely. (p. 25)
  • (About ‘'Berta filava’') It is perhaps the only song that does not fit into the general context of ‘'Mio fratello è figlio unico’'. It is against heroes, saints, novellas, and false myths: deliberately irreverent, the figure of Berta stands out, morally unsavory. In ‘'Berta filava’', the woman is chosen as a symbol: Berta is a bit like all of us who have discovered the tricks, the sleight of hand, the saints who dress in asbestos, the heroes. It helped me to demystify national myths, such as the homeland and the family. (p. 27)
  • (About ‘'La zappa... il tridente, il rastrello, la forca, l'aratro, il falcetto, il crivello, la vanga...’') I wanted to express the contrast between the farmer's tools, rendered as in a slogan, and the useless chatter and games in Countess Maffei's living room. (p. 29)
  • I have never told a story about my own love life, because talking about my personal affairs could upset the woman I am with, as I might run the risk of losing her: at this point, I prefer to lose the song. (p. 31)
  • It must be assumed that I, like other singer-songwriters of my generation, make pop music. But that doesn't prevent me from saying things that aren't light. I also talk about love, but I avoid describing situations such as: she leaves me, goes to someone else, then regrets it and comes back to me. So, even in my language, I try to be realistic. That is, when talking about love, I avoid using the usual tearful and useless words. (p. 31)
  • (Talking about ‘'Sfiorivano le viole’') The meaning of the song is: let's get a move on; while I was waiting for her, everything happened in the world and I didn't notice. Everything happened while I was waiting for you.
  • From an interview in ‘'Ciao 2001’', May 1976. </ref> (p. 31)
  • (About the reason for the title ‘'Aida’') Aida is a typical Italian name and because it represents all those women from the last seventy years, so my grandmother, my mother, my girlfriend, and possibly my future daughter. They are all Aidas, who have suffered as I have suffered over the last 28 years and as my mother has suffered in recent years. (p. 33)
  • Aida is not one woman, but all the women who tell their stories, each for five minutes. The result is the story of the last seventy years of Italy. (p. 33)
  • (About ‘'Escluso il cane’') The dog, the more it gets beaten, the more loyal it is: a politically absurd figure for the times we live in. The song was born from this consideration. (p. 37)
  • (About the final part of ‘'Nuntereggae più’') It's just another way of saying: “Oh well, since I've told you these things, since the song isn't political, the song isn't a rally, the singer-songwriter isn't Enrico Berlinguer or Marco Pannella, then at this point those who only write love songs are right.” (p. 41)
  • (About ‘'Gianna’') She is a girl, perhaps a little grown up, who is looking for a lot of things, looking for her Prince Charming, and this time she identifies him in the unions, in other things around her, but since she is a little tired in the evening, she looks for love. If in Sei ottavi she was masturbating, here she is looking for love with others. These are the contradictions of today's girls, and not only girls, but all of us. I believe that we are all a little confused, so we too are inclined to stand on the podium and say: “Stop, now I will explain my theories to you.” Which clearly correspond to my illusions. (p. 45)
  • Sanremo means nothing, and it is no coincidence that I participated with ‘Gianna’, which means nothing. (p. 46)
  • (About the role of the songwriter) To expect to give people something more than a smile, albeit a bitter one, something that starts a concrete process, through a song is pure illusion. This is the thesis of many singer-songwriters and also mine: in Italy, something that has always worked is irony, satire (even if no one has ever identified with the characters who have been the subject of it), the “we can't take it anymore, simplified and without dramatic consequences.”
  • Nicola Sisto, "Rino Gaetano. L'amico che cantava. (p. 49)
  • What interests me most is that sarcasm, the way I make fun of certain cornerstones of society, is easily understood by the public and taken for what it is; I have never tried to sugarcoat things or overdo it. (p. 49)
  • In some cities in the north, I have met people who are upset when you tell them you are Calabrian: they still expect to see a dark, short man with a moustache and a shotgun, a grim look on his face and a big hat. I think Puerto Ricans are better off than us. (p. 51)
  • I have written several pieces about emigration, but I have always placed this scourge within the broader and more alienating concept of marginalization and, above all, I have not portrayed the emigrant in the usual, trite iconography (teary eyes, cardboard suitcase, and mother dressed in black), trying instead to capture more of the turmoil of his emotions and affections. (p. 61)
“This statue is the only immovable thing about Rino Gaetano. His music, his poetry, his soul live on in everyone's hearts. An attentive and ironic observer of our country, he was able to convey the spirit of southern Italy to the world through his art.” So reads a commemorative plaque in Crotone, his hometown.

Quotes about

[edit]
  • (About the miniseries “Rino Gaetano - Ma il cielo è sempre più blu” (Rino Gaetano - But the sky is always bluer) that he produced) I had had the subject in mind for some time. I knew Rino Gaetano well because, as a girl, I was friends with his sister Anna, and we used to hang out in Rome. I liked his music and I liked him, a deeply intelligent guy. His is the story of a modern-day hero, as relevant today as his songs are. Stories about young people are rarely told on TV: this one aims to be.
  • (Referring to some of his songs) “Here there is no Gianna, Aida, or Berta spinning | and when the sun sets, Maria is already gone. | Despite the changes, this sky is always blue, | it is always the color you left it.”
  • Qui nun c'è Gianna, Aida, né Berta che filava | e quando tramonta il sol, Maria se n'è già andata. | Malgrado i cambiamenti, 'sto cielo è sempre blu, | è sempre der colore che l'hai lasciato tu.
  • We're here tonight to say goodbye to a friend, | to remember a brother named Rino. | I went to Verano just to say goodbye | because, I can say, I grew up with you. | If there were a monument, millions would come | to pay homage to the genius who sang the songs.‘’
  • Se stamo qui stasera è pe salutà un amico, | pe ricordà un fratello che se chiamava Rino. | So annato lì al Verano solo pe fa un saluto | perché, lo posso dì, co te so cresciuto. | Ce fosse un monumento, verrebbero in milioni | a rende omaggio ar genio che cantava le canzoni.
  • In the end, Rino's beautiful songs, almost Battistian in style, work. Not only because they remind us of the atmosphere of the late 1970s, but also because the musical obviousness proposed today makes them even more of a model. “‘'Nuntereggae più’'” is very topical: Costanzo and Bongiorno are still there, you just need to change the name of a few politicians.
  • The life of the solitary and tormented singer-songwriter (who died in a car accident) was short but intense in terms of the creativity of his compositions, which ranged from paradox to sarcasm. An exuberant and satirical artist with a captivating musical vein, Rino Gaetano played a witty and irreverent role that was unusual in the Italian music scene.
  • I will say right away that Rino Gaetano was an artist, and I would add that this cannot be said of everyone. He was an artist, with all the fragility of artists, with a presence and an often decisive desire to provoke. Nuntereggae più is more than a song, it is a manifesto, a chorus of protest.
  • He was physically different from us, he didn't have the aplomb of university students that we had, even though we tried to act like freaks. Then there was Rino's gypsy-like appearance, he was a kind of loose cannon, he had enormous talent and boundless imagination. I remember his mocking, provocative gaze, but also his great sweetness. His songs had the formal appearance of nonsense, but they had content, they made you think. Rino knew what songs were and how to write them. He was a man of the South and you could sense that, I mean that in a positive way.
  • Francesco and Antonello were politically engaged, even though Rino also had his own political views, but perhaps they were a little more disguised and also a little more subtle, more ironic, not as overt as Antonello's songs might have been.
  • Time causes some songs to fade, while Rino's songs defy the power of time: with simple harmonic turns, provocative, irreverent phrases, but recited with the lightness and naivety of a pure artist. And always with his unmistakable scratchy voice.
  • Fiorello, quoted in booklet of the album E cantavo le canzoni, RCA Italiana, 27 July 2010.
  • Rino's songs are not songs of remembrance, they are songs of the present and the future. The first word I associate with him is: forward. And the Rino of thirty years ago, that Rino, even today, would be one step ahead of all of us.
  • He used to write down the lyrics to his songs directly on napkins in restaurants, so as not to lose any of his inspiration.
  • When he took to the stage at Sanremo in 1978 to sing Gianna, he looked like he had stepped out of the famous song by Domenico Modugno: he wore a top hat and tailcoat with a boutonniere. With his blend of irony, optimism, romanticism, and nonsense, he was quite unique on the Italian scene, an outsider, like Buscaglione.
  • Our destiny is always in our name. Rino Gaetano has two first names: Rino and Gaetano. When you address someone by their first name, it is because you know them, because they are a friend. He even has two [...] Rino and Gaetano, one cheerful and one sad, one studious and one who ends up behind the blackboard, one tender and one sarcastic, one committed and one who doesn't care. Two brothers, two only children, as we all are in a way. Unique.
  • I remember everything. Sanremo, the top hat and striped shirt, the explorer's hat. I love hats, and maybe it's his fault.
  • Rino Gaetano is the most eccentric, free, and intuitive Italian singer-songwriter. He was a maverick. He was capable of going to Sanremo just to make fun of everyone. A man who relied on his talent, with no other safety net.
  • Madam [Susanna Agnelli], perhaps you don't know him. This young man in formal dress [...] is called Rino Gaetano, he is a singer-songwriter who writes ironic, playful, light-hearted songs. He wrote one that was quite successful this summer, ‘'Nuntereggae più’', which means “I can't stand you anymore,” and he, who will soon devote himself to setting the ‘'Yellow Pages’' to music because he makes lists of names, has made a list of names involving a number of people, including me.[2]
  • (During A Gino Paoli on August 19, 1977) I would like to introduce you to a friend who came to visit me and who amuses me. He amuses me because he is the heir to a certain type of nonsense, of marinetterie, of the most ancient surrealism. His name is Rino Gaetano.
  • Gino Paoli, quoted in Silvia D'Ortenzi, Rare tracce: ironie e canzoni di Rino Gaetano, Arcana, 2007, p. 74.

Renzo Arbore

[edit]
  • It was precisely this attitude that struck me when I heard the first “things” from a young man from Crotone who, wearing a strange hat, enjoyed teasing people with his own songs, which were beautiful songs. It seems a bit of a jumbled thought, but I hope it conveys the idea of what this young man from Crotone, “named” Rino Gaetano, seemed to me to be doing. So I began to “play him” (radio language of the time...) and talk about him in newspaper columns in the weekly magazines of the same period. I was thrilled once again that Gaetano invented ‘the other song’, the song of the song, that he pursued the rhymes that first came to mind... (and therefore the most inspired...). That he sang everything with ease and lightness; even that some people didn't like Gaetano; this thrilled me.
  • From the booklet of the album E cantavo le canzoni, RCA Italiana, 27 July 2010.
  • Gaetano wrote some of the songs that are part of our country's memory. Songs of memory are important, think, I don't know, ‘Zazà’, ‘I papaveri alti alti’ are songs of memory that were not commercially successful or whatever, but they do not live only in the space of a fashion, of a period, they are the ones that remain in the collective memory, they are handed down orally.
  • From the TV program Vite Straordinarie, Rete 4, 1 May 2010. Video available on Youtube.com
  • Rino Gaetano writes songs with a particular, cultured, refined language; a kind of realistic poetry in some cases, symbolic in others. I like it best when he shouts Tu, forse non essenzialmente tu (You, perhaps not essentially you), a rather desperate song, helped by a beautiful melody.
  • From Zona disco, Il Monello, n. 31, Casa Editrice Universo, 1974.
  • When I got Rino Gaetano's record, I was delighted because I found someone who was as unconventional as me. In reality, those were years when singer-songwriters were committed; if you weren't “committed”—a cursed word, damnably fashionable—you were out of the loop. But then Rino Gaetano came along with his seemingly uncommitted songs.
  • From the TV program Vite Straordinarie, Rete 4, 1 May 2010. Video available on Youtube.com.

Ernesto Bassignano

[edit]
  • He adopted an atypical, clownish style, but he didn't do cabaret. He constantly desecrated pop music and, for all these reasons, he was unthinkable for the Folkstudio audience.
  • Rino Gaetano, Ma il cielo è sempre più blu. Pensieri, racconti e canzoni inedite, a cura di M. Cotto, Mondadori, 2004, p. 90.
  • On the one hand, there were Baglioni and Cocciante, who were bland; there was Battisti, whom none of us thought much of; there were those like me who drew inspiration from France and Tenco, others who looked to Dylan, and others like Antonello who looked to Elton John and English music. Rino was truly the most Italian because he didn't look to anything or anyone else.
  • From the TV program 'Rino vive! – Ma il cielo è sempre più blu di Antonio Carella, La storia siamo noi, Rai Tre, 19 novembre 2007. (Link Youtube Part 4)
  • And among these guys we managed on Sunday afternoons, there was this skinny guy, with a few broken teeth, looking like a real badass with his little guitar. [...] He knew how to win my heart right away, so much so that Cesaroni, who had heard him play and “strum” the guitar, as he said, was not in favor of letting him sing even on Sunday afternoons. I, on the other hand, having found some very nice, very naive, very true things in him, waited for the moment when Giancarlo, the so-called “boss,” Cesaroni went around Trastevere drinking whiskey with De Gregori, and I would throw him on stage. And I remember well these two songs he did for a few Sundays in a row, one dedicated to a friend[3], who, as fate would have it, I believe had been in a car accident and died, and the other dedicated to a railway worker[4], Agapito Malteni, and it's a song that has stayed with me; I still hum it sometimes. There was this beautiful image of a train running along the Tavoliere. That's how I got to know him.
  • From the TV program Rino vive! – Ma il cielo è sempre più blu di Antonio Carella, La storia siamo noi, Rai Tre, 19 November 2007. (Link Youtube Part 3
  • It was like this: you sing, sing... say, say... talk... and I'll take you all for...
  • From the TV program 'Rino vive! – Ma il cielo è sempre più blu di Antonio Carella, La storia siamo noi, Rai Tre, 19 novembre 2007. (Link Youtube Part 4)
  • With his guitar, he began to play [Imitating the rhythm of ‘'Ma il cielo è sempre più’'] and began to sing “il cielo è sempre più blu” (the sky is bluer and bluer) and we all went enthusiastically to Vincenzo Micocci: “Vince', look, this guy has written a little piece that could really work,” we told him. Micocci wasn't so convinced.
  • From the TV program Rino vive! – Ma il cielo è sempre più blu di Antonio Carella, La storia siamo noi, Rai Tre, 19 November 2007. (Link Youtube Part 3
  • I remember once talking about it with Paolo Conte and we were very impressed by his song called ‘'E cantava le canzoni’' (And he sang songs), it was a folk song [...] and it's about transhumance, a road full of cows with bells, the whistles of shepherds. [...] There, really, in a song like that, I recognize his great musical talent.
  • From the TV program 'Rino vive! – Ma il cielo è sempre più blu di Antonio Carella, La storia siamo noi, Rai Tre, 19 novembre 2007. (Link Youtube Part 4)

Lucio Dalla

[edit]
  • I think that in the category of, let's say, “songwriters,” he was the most unusual one.
  • From the TV program Vite Straordinarie, Rete 4, 1 May 2010.Video available on Youtube.com (min. 8:10)
  • He was hitchhiking with his guitar slung over his shoulder, and I gave him a ride to Rome, where he was going to look for a contract. He played me a preview of his songs, and I took him to Vincenzo Micocci, who then launched him.
  • If you listen to the songs broadcast by the top five or six networks today, they are always the same songs that are circulating... The curious thing is that even today, you often hear Gaetano's songs.
  • From the TV program Vite Straordinarie, Rete 4, 1 May 2010.Video available on Youtube.com (min. 8:10)

J-Ax

[edit]
  • Il tempo è giustiziere Rino | ora i tuoi dischi suonano come se fossero appena usciti. | Rino, hai vinto tu.
    • Time is a judge, Rino | now your records sound like they've just been released. | Rino, you've won.
    • From the booklet of the album E cantavo le canzoni, RCA Italiana, 27 July 2010.
  • Mi serve sentirti Rino | presto al mattino | per non sentirmi solo e per sentire un po' di orgoglio per il posto dove sono nato, vivo e scrivo.
  • I need to hear you, Rino | early in the morning | so I don't feel alone and so I can feel a little pride in the place where I was born, where I live and where I write.
    • From the booklet of the album E cantavo le canzoni, RCA Italiana, 27 July 2010.
  • Rino mi dà tuttora energia e rabbia. Aveva attitudine rock e voce roca, era un outsider anche a livello compositivo.
  • Rino mi piaci un casino | tanto quanto mi piacevi da bambino, | mamma dice che eri quello che preferivo | perché eri il solo colorato in un cantautorato grigio.
  • Rino, I like you a lot | just as much as I liked you when I was a child, | Mom says you were my favorite | because you were the only colorful one in a gray songwriting scene.
    • From the booklet of the album E cantavo le canzoni, RCA Italiana, 27 July 2010.

q:it:Vincenzo Micocci

[edit]
  • I believe that young people today continue to love him or, in some cases, to rediscover him, because of his great simplicity. So generations are clearly renewing themselves through his repertoire.
  • From the TV program Rino vive! – Ma il cielo è sempre più blu di Antonio Carella, La storia siamo noi, Rai Tre, 19 November 2007. (Link Youtube Part 5)
  • He wanted to sing in English because he wanted to disguise himself in some way, so much so that this characteristic accompanied him even later, when he made his official debut, he was always dressed in a curious way.
  • From the TV program Rino vive! – Ma il cielo è sempre più blu di Antonio Carella, La storia siamo noi, Rai Tre, 19 November 2007. (Link Youtube Part 3)
  • I met Rino Gaetano through De Gregori and Venditti, but he started going to the studio without me mentioning him because, how can I put it, he was somewhat protected by the two people I was working with a lot at the time.
  • From the TV program Rino vive! – Ma il cielo è sempre più blu di Antonio Carella, La storia siamo noi, Rai Tre, 19 November 2007. (Link Youtube Part 3)
  • He considered himself a songwriter, not a singer. He was convinced he didn't have a good voice, so much so that after the release of ‘I Love You Maryanna’, when it was time to record his first album, he came to me and said it would be better to have a friend sing his songs. Of course, I laughed and sent him to the studio.
  • Quoted in Ma il cielo è sempre più blu, p. 13.

Mogol

[edit]
  • People remember him, the years go by and he becomes important. It's alchemy, it's truly indecipherable. In my opinion, it's his artistic freedom, his refusal to belong to any code.
  • From the TV program Rino vive! – Ma il cielo è sempre più blu di Antonio Carella, La storia siamo noi, Rai 3, 19 novembre 2007. Video available on Youtube.com.
  • In the world of music, he passed like spring, very quickly...
  • From the TV program Rino vive! – Ma il cielo è sempre più blu di Antonio Carella, La storia siamo noi, Rai 3, 19 novembre 2007. Video available on Youtube.com.
  • If some of his songs are still alive, that's the litmus test. I mean, they're songs that are suitable for any time, any era, any season.
  • From the TV program Vite Straordinarie, Rete 4, 1 maggio 2010. Video available on Youtube.com.

Vincenzo Mollica

[edit]
  • There is the song Nuntereggae più, which is also a very entertaining song, but he had the courage of his convictions and never backed down: he named names, at a time when naming names was very difficult.
  • He was an anarchic spirit, someone who wrote whatever came into his head without responding to specific social or political codes.
  • From the TV program of Antonio Carella, Rino vive! – Ma il cielo è sempre più blu, La storia siamo noi, Rai 3, 19 novembre 2007. Video available on Youtube.com
  • But he had a great strength, which was irony, and irony was not always understood in those years, when everyone was very sectarian. [...] He focused on writing his songs, and his songs had to faithfully reflect his thoughts but also his eccentricity, that positive eccentricity that accompanied his thoughts, his ability to distort reality in order to describe it better, using the weapon of paradox. [...] He was the most paradoxical singer-songwriter, and it was by constructing the most incredible paradoxes that he was able to describe his times, his life, and his loves with perfect realism.
  • From the TV program Antonio Carella, Rino vive! – Ma il cielo è sempre più blu La storia siamo noi, Rai 3, 19 novembre 2007. Video available on Youtube.com.
  • These are songs that, if you listen to them again today, all have their own reason, their own truth, and their own relevance. He was a true scourge, someone who put his finger on the wound and even added a little salt if it was needed to widen that ugly wound.
  • From the TV program of Antonio Carella, Rino vive! – Ma il cielo è sempre più blu, La storia siamo noi, Rai 3, 19 novembre 2007. Video available on Youtube.com.

Paolo Rossi

[edit]
  • He was definitely a nonconformist. That's what I admire about him, that's why young people still love him and why his songs still make sense and are fun to sing along to, among other things. Not all songs are meant to be sung along to in bars, taverns, restaurants, picnics, trips, buses... Gaetano's are.
  • His unique interpretation of nursery rhymes in pop, reggae, whatever you want... is exclusively his, by right.
  • From the TV program Rino vive! – Ma il cielo è sempre più blu di Antonio Carella, La storia siamo noi, Rai Tre, 19 novembre 2007. (Link Youtube Part 4)
  • He deserves a place in the pantheon of Italian popular music from the 1960s onwards.
  • From the TV program Rino vive! – Ma il cielo è sempre più blu of Antonio Carella, La storia siamo noi, Rai Tre, 19 November 2007. (Link Youtube Part 4)

q:it:Dario Salvatori

[edit]
  • [In 2007] He is among us in some way and therefore he is in compilations, he is in fiction, he is in television commercials, he is everywhere.
  • From the TV program Rino vive! – Ma il cielo è sempre più blu di Antonio Carella, La storia siamo noi, Rai Tre, 19 novembre 2007. (Link Youtube Part 5)
  • I wouldn't categorize him because the thing he hated most was being categorized. In my opinion, he is a free talent, a free personality, not inclined to compromise.7
  • From the TV program Rino vive! – Ma il cielo è sempre più blu di Antonio Carella, La storia siamo noi, Rai Tre, 19 November 2007. (Link Youtube Part 4)
  • Rino Gaetano was not looked upon favorably because he was disengaged, and that was not a time when disengaged people were viewed very well.
  • From the TV program Rino vive! – Ma il cielo è sempre più blu di Antonio Carella, La storia siamo noi, Rai Tre, 19 November 2007. (Link Youtube Part 4)

Claudio Santamaria

[edit]
  • From the authors he read, Dante, Pavese, Palazzeschi, from the music he listened to, from his appearances on television. I wanted to bring out a side of him that had never been seen before[5], his most poetic and fragile side.
  • The first word that comes to mind when I think of Rino is “poet.”
  • From the TV program Rino vive! – Ma il cielo è sempre più blu di Antonio Carella, La storia siamo noi, Rai Tre, 19 novembre 2007. Video available on YouTube.com.
  • (About Rino's songs) They are still relevant today, just look at the lyrics of ‘'Nuntereggae più’', it seems like it was written yesterday. It is good not to forget an artist who did not want to take sides, and who paid the price for that choice.
  • A poet above all else, and a jester, an irreverent figure who knew how to play down things without being superficial. I knew his songs but not his life, I didn't know he had been in boarding school as a child. Singing wasn't a problem for me because I had a band. Then, he sang more with his heart than with technique, his were performances, I saw that once he showed up at a Corrado show wearing a diving suit...

Andrea Scanzi

[edit]
  • Posthumous and uncritical beatification is a very Italian way of legitimizing artists who were underappreciated during their lifetime. This is certainly the case with Gaetano: too ironic and not sufficiently “aligned” in the politicized chaos of the 1970s. His death (in 1981) complicated the artistic analysis of his work. And certain fictional works, which were not very philological, did not help, except in the reverberation of memory. Gaetano was a supernova. He shone for three years, from 1976's ‘Mio fratello è figlio unico’ to 1978's Nuntereggae più. The success of Gianna in Sanremo took him by surprise, and he did not have time to come to terms with it.
  • ‘'Live & Rarities’', the collection of Rino Gaetano's songs authorized by his family, says two things above all: that Rino was a giant (which we already knew) and that he is more alive in death than many of his colleagues are in life (which we would rather not have known).
  • Listening to them again today, even Gaetano's ‘rejects’ say more about the present than most of his living colleagues. Even in his lesser-known tracks, there is that mix of moodiness and disillusioned irony.

Walter Veltroni

[edit]
  • His talent lies in his extraordinary ability to interpret Italy and Italians through playfulness and intelligent provocation, social criticism and nonsense, overturning conventions, which necessarily means overturning convenient truths, official statements, the powdered politics of the Palace, and the stereotypes of a fattened and moralistic conformism.
  • From the booklet of the album E cantavo le canzoni, RCA Italiana, 27 July 2010.
  • But he is an irreverent knight: when he takes to the stage at the Ariston in Sanremo to sing Gianna, he does so in a tailcoat and red striped shirt, with a top hat and sneakers. In this pastiche of words, colors, sounds, screams, and grimaces, the trait that distinguishes him from everyone else is his irony, lived with his heart, with total passion, never with coldness, never with detachment. Irony is his weapon as a poet and, to quote a philosopher, in Rino “irony is the sure eye that knows how to grasp the crooked, the absurd, the futility of existence.”
  • From the booklet of the album E cantavo le canzoni, RCA Italiana, 27 July 2010.
  • Rino Gaetano continues to flourish everywhere, even though he is no longer with us, because his figure and his music are still deeply embedded in the collective imagination and memory of our country. His music still sounds like a manifesto of brilliant protest, because Rino never sets himself up as a censor, judge, or moralizer: he recounts the world through his desires and his irony, his desire for liberation from individual anxieties and social injustices, his dreams, his artistic illusions.
  • From the booklet of the album E cantavo le canzoni, RCA Italiana, 27 July 2010.
  • Rino throws himself onto the stage, onto the audience, onto Italy, onto politics, and he does so without a safety net other than his artistic talent. He attacks, he provokes, yet he is defenseless, an “only child” in a country that struggles to find itself and sees Rino as a jester, a “strange” singer-songwriter who sings enigmatic, incomprehensible, absurd songs.
  • From the booklet della album E cantavo le canzoni, RCA Italiana, 27 July 2010.

Antonello Venditti

[edit]
  • Rino and I met in 1970. I don't remember the exact day, but I think he showed up at Folkstudio, where we were already there: me, De Gregori, and Giorgio Lo Cascio. To ‘us’, the famous four guys with guitars, Bassignano joined us, but I think Bassignano arrived in '71. I was a taxi driver, so in the evenings.
    • Io e Rino ci siamo conosciuti nel 1970, non ricordo il giorno esatto, ma credo che fece la sua apparizione al Folkstudio, dove c'eravamo già noi: io, De Gregori e Giorgio Lo Cascio. Ai quali "noi", i famosi quattro ragazzi con la chitarra, si aggiunse Bassignano, però credo che Bassignano arrivò nel '71. Io facevo il tassista e quindi accompagnavo di sera questi quattro cialtroni, più gli amici che mi facevo. Gli ultimi di questi è stato Rino e quindi era anche l'ultimo che io portavo a casa. Quindi abbiamo fatto centinaia di volte la strada che lui ha fatto purtroppo da solo quella tragica mattina.
  • I would drive these four scoundrels around, plus the friends I made. The last of these was Rino, so he was also the last one I drove home. So we traveled hundreds of times the road that he unfortunately traveled alone that tragic morning[6].
    • From the TV program Rino vive! – Ma il cielo è sempre più blu di Antonio Carella, La storia siamo noi, Rai tre, 19 novembre 2007. Video available on Youtube.com.
  • (About the miniseries ‘'Rino Gaetano - Ma il cielo è sempre più blu’') The fiction did not mention cocaine; it was very present in those years and in the circle where Rino ended up in his last years, and it was also responsible for his tragic end. The story ignored Rino's real problem, cocaine.[7]
  • Rino was a sprite, a clown who had roots so different from ours that it was almost inexplicable. So when he played his songs for us, for example, for me and De Gregori, Francesco and I would look at each other and try to figure him out...
  • From the TV program Rino vive! – Ma il cielo è sempre più blu by Antonio Carella, La storia siamo noi, Rai tre, 19 novembre 2007. Video available on Youtube.com.
  • Rino was a kind of ghost who wandered like an elf around all the clubs in Rome looking for friends, looking for people to talk to, to whom he could play his songs.
  • From the TV program Rino vive! – Ma il cielo è sempre più blu by Antonio Carella, La storia siamo noi, Rai tre, 19 novembre 2007. Video available on Youtube.com.
  • Rino had no points of reference, except perhaps one, who had a tragic fate like his own, and that was Fred Buscaglione.
  • From the TV program Rino vive! – Ma il cielo è sempre più blu by Antonio Carella, La storia siamo noi, Rai tre, 19 November 2007. Video available on Youtube.com.

References

[edit]
  1. ↑ In 1976, he appeared on the television program ‘'Adesso Musica’' for the release of his second album, ‘'Mio fratello è figlio unico’'. Gaetano entered the studio with a dog (a cocker spaniel, to be precise), explaining his gesture with these words. The dog also appears symbolically on the album cover.
  2. ↑ Maurizio Costanzo introduced his guest Rino Gaetano in this way during the Rai broadcast Acquario on October 30, 1978. Susanna Agnelli was also present in the studio, and it is her that Costanzo refers to when he says “signora.” It should be noted that both Maurizio Costanzo and Susanna Agnelli are mentioned in the Calabrian singer-songwriter's song, ‘'Nuntereggae più’'.
  3. ↑ Bassignano refers to ‘'La Ballata di Renzo’', an unreleased song by Rino Gaetano.
  4. ↑ Bassignano is referring to the song ‘'Agapito Malteni il ferroviere’', the seventh track on Gaetano's first album, ‘'Ingresso Libero’', an ironic ballad on the theme of emigration.
  5. ↑ Claudio Santamaria played Rino Gaetano in the Italian television miniseries ‘’Rino Gaetano - Ma il cielo è sempre più blu‘’.
  6. ↑ The reference is probably to Via Nomentana. On June 2, 1981, while traveling along this road, Rino crashed his Volvo into a truck. The accident proved fatal for the singer-songwriter.
  7. ↑ Antonello Venditti was then sued by Rino's sister, Anna Gaetano, because of these statements. The case against Venditti was subsequently dismissed as there was no evidence of any intention to denigrate in the singer's words.

Bibliography

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