I survived the '70s.
Those were the Years of Lead,
with the Red Brigades, Continuous Struggle, and Workers' Power.
I was a Metropolitan Indian, trying to improve myself.
I was an anarchist.
The people who called themselves Workers' Power seemed crazy to me.
They were students who went home to their parents in the afternoon.
And their continuous struggle ended there. Yeah...
Then I survived the '80s,
the drinking years, the stupid years,
but also the greatest and most enjoyable years.
I survived by making rock music.
I started making rock in Italian.
I wrote generational anthems, provocative songs.
Then I survived the '90s, when I decided to have a family,
the most transgressive choice a rock star could make.
Leaving the "stupid hotel."
At the end of the millennium,
when all my friends started dying around me,
I fell into a depression.
But I kept going.
I faced the 2010s,
continuing to deliver extraordinary live concerts.
I survived three deadly illnesses in 2011,
when I fell into a coma three or four times.
I barely survived.
And in 2020, when this global catastrophe hit...
I think I'll survive this fucking virus, too.
Though you know what?
I might die of boredom during the lockdown.
I have to tell you something, though.
If I think about it, I'm not only a survivor,
I'm a "super-vivor."
VASCO ROSSI: LIVING IT
"I WANT A LIFE LIKE MINE"
Listen, the guitar is an instrument you have to play all the time.
It's all about practicing.
Here it is, the guitar.
It's an instrument you have to keep practicing.
It's been a while since I've really played,
but there was a time in my teenage years when it was my constant partner.
THE '50S CHILDHOOD
My childhood in Zocca was very happy.
My mother was very young.
She had a friend who was 15 at the time. Her name was Ivana.
They were basically having fun with me,
spinning me around like a doll.
They used to put my hair up,
and they enjoyed dressing me up.
They made me go around reciting poems.
I remember it as a very happy time,
and I was doing lots of things.
I was always up to something with Ivana and my mother.
I'd learn songs from Sanremo.
I used to sing them at parties or to my grandparents.
And then occasionally, I had to be a pageboy at weddings.
I was pretty cute, with my blue eyes.
There was this poem, "I am a beautiful boy with blue eyes, the color of the sea."
One day, the selectors for a new voices contest came to Zocca.
There were a lot of these contests. They were popular.
There was Lo zecchino d'oro in Bologna
and L'usignolo d'oro in Modena.
I participated just for fun. I was just a kid.
Maybe I was the only one who had been singing for a while.
Apart from Otello, also known as Otis.
My name is Otello Righetti. Otis to my friends. Otis to everyone.
CHILDHOOD FRIEND
There was a selection in Zocca at the Roma movie theater.
Now it's a bar called Bibap.
There was a live orchestra, and the stage is still there.
It's where we play cards in the summer now.
This is where the movie theater was.
It was the village movie theater, with the screen over there in the back.
And that's the stage, which was already there at the time.
That's where I sang for the first time
in the music contest L'usignolo d'oro.
A number of locals performed.
Vasco sang "Violino tzigano," and I sang "La paloma."
I still remember singing "La paloma."
Exactly. He hasn't changed. He still sings "La paloma" to this day.
...and so on.
Then, of course, only one usignolo, nightingale, remained,
the golden nightingale. Vasco.
I was defeated, of course, like everyone else.
"The star is born. 1960."
THE STAR IS BORN
So I won, and I got to the finals,
which took place in Modena, at the Teatro Comunale of Modena.
There was a jury of children.
I had yet to sing.
A little girl came up and got 99 votes.
So I thought, "Oh well..."
I sang my song, got offstage, and I heard, "Ten, ten, ten, ten..."
I was just waiting for a nine to come up.
All tens.
A hundred out of a hundred. An incredible victory.
I couldn't believe it. I was stunned.
I said, "Impossible. It's impossible that I've won."
An article came out in the Modena newspaper, saying,
"He was wandering around backstage in his baggy pants and oversized jacket."
"He is a self-taught kid from Zocca,
who learned to sing while tending his sheep."
People living in an area are divided into highlanders,
inpianzen, people of the plains,
and bassaioli, those who live in the lowest areas near the river Po.
The two extremes are always mocked. We were suffering because of it.
It was a way of marking people negatively,
and this affected the psyche, I can assure you.
There was this feeling
that if you came from the mountains, you were seen as inferior.
It was the start of a new chapter for me.
The following year, I traveled to various towns
where selections were being held.
I would show up as the winner of the previous year.
So I already felt like a star.
The song was called "Come nelle fiabe."
225,000 TICKETS SOLD
Forty years later, I wrote a song called "Come nelle favole."
Things had come full circle, in a way.
Vasco, is your first home in Zocca the one above the Trieste bar?
Yes. That was the first house I lived in.
I lived there until my father died.
This is Via Mauro Tesi.
VASCO'S FIRST HOME
This is the door
to my apartment.
Hi.
Saying hi to Pepito. I'll tell you later.
This door down here,
I'd usually leave it unlocked so I could just open it without a key.
I never used the key. I always just pushed it open.
Here is the entrance. Come.
This was the entrance and the first three steps.
Of course, I also kept my motorbike here sometimes.
There, too, the bicycle. That's how we lived here.
Then I'd climb the stairs in my special way. Two steps at a time.
I'd learned to do it at this speed. Go up a bit more. Like that.
You see? Then, holding here, I'd get to the top, practically flying.
That's how I'd get up there.
Annamaria lived here.
She was my first love. I was seven years old.
She was the daughter of the bar owners.
So pretty. She went to my school.
And when I met her on the stairs...
Back then, children would say, "I like you."
When you said, "I like you," and the other said, "I like you,"
then you were together.
You wouldn't say, "I love you." You'd say, "I like you."
So I used to ask her...
Every time I'd see her, I'd say, "Is it still the case?"
And she'd say, "Yes." And I'd be as happy as a clam.
Then one day, I asked her, "Is it still the case?"
She said, "No."
I said, "Why not?" My whole world crumbled.
She said, "No. I like someone else."
She liked another kid, a vacationer with longer pants
while ours were a little shorter...
That was my biggest disappointment in love.
I remember when she left, because her family was moving out,
the door had been left open.
I went inside to look around the whole apartment
to see if she had left something written somewhere that mentioned me.
There was nothing.
THE '70S YOUTH
There was the Olimpia bar
where he'd spend part of the day listening to songs from the jukebox,
because that was the only way.
I was always playing the guitar,
and one day I decided to try and write a song.
The first one, I remember, went like this.
Behind... Inside the waves of this sea
They blow slowly, full of salt...
I mean, this kind of nonsense.
I used to go and play it for my friends.
"I wrote a new song." And they had to listen to it.
Then he started to put together a group of friends
to play music together.
I had put together a group of friends in Zocca.
My first band, the Little Boys.
We did, I don't know, maybe three concerts.
Because we were only playing three songs.
Then I started gaining experience as a singer in a real band.
We traveled around, doing concerts in the mountains.
The band was called I Falchi, and I would sing Italian songs.
They also played the liscio. But when they played that, I would leave.
Because I was a young man. I wasn't...
I mean, I wasn't the local shepherd.
I was one of the cool guys, one of the more sophisticated ones.
In the summer, we used to work
to earn some money to go on vacation in September.
Picking cherries, things like that.
So I came up with this disco club idea.
We worked at the disco club.
And in September, we went on vacation with all the money we had made.
One year, we rented a pool. It was serious business.
We submitted a bid, and we got the pool and the bar.
Suddenly, one day when I was at the bar...
I was sitting there. I still remember it.
Marco Gherardi showed up.
"Do you know that in Milan there's an FM radio station?"
I said, "But you can't." It was prohibited.
The RAI had the monopoly, and it wasn't allowed.
He said, "In Milan, they do it."
"Fuck, let's start a radio station in Zocca right away."
Marco Gherardi was the childhood friend I founded my first band with.
He was my regular partner in crime.
That's when the adventure of Punto Radio began.
THE RADIO STATION
My name is Floriano Fini.
I'm in charge of coordinating Vasco's activities as much as possible.
Based on the amount of time we spend together,
I can say that I'm probably one of Vasco's best friends.
The first time I saw Vasco...
I could tell you about a child who was six, seven, or eight years old,
who was visiting some family friends
and heard someone's voice coming from a room, singing,
"Your eyes are dazzling headlights, and I am in front of them."
And I'm pretty sure that was Vasco, as we were at his house.
ZOCCA HEALTH RESORT
I met him, and we started hanging out.
Vasco was the kind of kid
who was always looking for a car ride to go somewhere,
like to the club or something like that.
I'm talking about the early '70s.
Luckily, someone knew how to play the guitar.
Vasco often talks about those early days.
He makes fun of himself, recounting how people would say,
"Run! Vasco's coming with his guitar."
Actually, it wasn't like that.
It was so much fun.
Obviously, those who played the guitar had a lot of advantages.
For the others, it was difficult to score anything at all.
Here we are, look. After almost 50 years.
Fifty years. Yes.
FIRST HEADQUARTERS OF "PUNTO RADIO"
Yes, since '76, more or less...
Yes, from about the middle of '76, when we moved the headquarters to Zocca.
...I haven't been here.
I just came to see it from the outside.
We're really going back...
Let's see what we have here.
...to the pre-history of radio broadcasting.
Here is the antenna pole.
This is how it all started.
This was the best location for broadcasting to the entire Po Valley.
The funny part is, when we went to collect the antennas,
to bring them home, we had borrowed a...
A small truck. A van.
A small truck, one of those vans with the iron bars.
So, the antenna...
The antenna was too large and didn't fit.
So at that point, they basically decided to cut down the structure.
The roof of the small truck.
The guy who lent us the truck lost the roof.
-Exactly. -But it was for a very important cause.
Establishing a radio station in '75
was basically carrying on what I had pursued in my twenties,
the revolution, trying to change the world.
Let's see what's left inside.
Amazing.
Here it is.
You see, something like this was enough back in those days.
It was radio.
The first pirate radio station, since the RAI had been holding a monopoly.
Only they were allowed to broadcast.
We decided to organize five consecutive parties in five clubs.
A full week of madness.
We start on Tuesday, December 13, at the Snoopy Club in Modena...
I'm Mauro Luccarini, and I'm a graphic designer.
In the early days, I used to listen to Punto Radio and Vasco.
I was around 16 years old...
GRAPHIC DESIGNER AND FILM DIRECTOR
...when a group of friends and I first started listening to the radio.
In this case, magically,
the Punto Radio's broadcasts, originally transmitting from Monteombraro,
were made by people of a similar age.
I was very young. They were just a few years older,
and as such, they had the expertise to introduce music
that was only played rarely or not played at all.
Hey there.
So, this is Punto Radio.
Technical broadcast tests.
Punto Radio transmitting at 103,850 megahertz.
Hello. Good morning.
This was the theme song. Every morning, we'd start with this track.
It made me incredibly happy. Every time I hear it, I feel excited.
It's 6:08 p.m. From Punto Radio studios, here's today's chart...
The era of Punto Radio was truly great.
It felt like an explosion for all of us, for this small group of young guys.
Maurizio Solieri, from the microphones of this station in the Apennines...
To many in town, we seemed like a bunch of crazy troublemakers,
or even addicts who were up to no good.
In reality, we were simply pursuing what we hoped would become a job one day.
"Hey there! Sound on sound!"
This is how my show began, "Hey there! Sound on sound!"
Basically,
I played music I didn't like that much,
but I really enjoyed being a DJ.
I've told you before that, of course, our turntables couldn't do
what the professional ones could do at RAI and Radio Monte Carlo.
They had these big machines that would start at the correct speed.
So, we came up with a trick.
We'd listen to where the song began. Listen.
With a headset.
Then we'd spin the label back by one rotation.
So, the label was back at the starting point.
Then, we'd introduce the song, saying,
"And now, ladies and gentlemen..." And released it.
"...Vasco Rossi's record."
Did you hear that?
This was quite revolutionary.
All the others who had started doing radio by then
had no clue how we made the records begin exactly when we stopped talking.
This is my show, and I run it my way.
I heard these voices, these guys who were starting a radio station.
I was fascinated and curious.
The first time, I took the bus to meet them.
And the first people I met were Floriano Fini and Vasco.
My name is Gaetano Curreri,
known as "Betoten" and also as "Il Cututto."
SINGER AND SONGWRITER
They met me in an office,
with Vasco at the desk and Floriano beside him.
They asked me, "What do you want to do?"
"What do you mean?" "Why did you come here?"
I replied, "I'll do anything."
"I just want to be here with you."
I sensed an incredible energy there.
The first time I saw Curreri was at the radio station.
He'd take the bus to the station,
having chosen not to get a driver's license to be a bit different.
He was, let's say, possibly the first professional musician
we encountered.
Every afternoon, something special will happen
in the city where the party will be held.
Got it? To give you an idea...
One day, as we were chatting, I saw a car approach, a yellow Miura.
It parked down below.
We said, "Who's this guy coming over?"
So, we went to have a look. The others had noticed it too.
The guy came up and said, "I'm the owner of the Snoopy in Modena."
That was pretty much the hippest club in Modena.
The trendiest.
They'd never had a white disc jockey at that club.
He came up and asked, "Who's Vasco, the host?"
I replied, "It's me."
"I wanna offer you a job at the Snoopy."
I went, "Great, I'm thrilled to join."
That was a major turning point for me.
SNOOPY DISCO CLUB
This is the Snoopy.
It's still the same here.
This bar is still exactly the same.
Identical.
I've been leaning against it for... Well, who knows how long.
It was like a maze. You'd go around and end up in the same spot.
The first time I saw it, I was amazed. Dancing there wasn't easy.
This is the new console.
It's nice too. But the one we had back then was much more beautiful.
People were fascinated by it. It was a plexiglass dome.
The first few months,
I remember always being in jeans, sneakers, and a T-shirt.
I was a bit of a rebel. I was a '70s guy.
They stared at me like I was nuts.
They'd head to the bar and ask Degani,
"Who's that wild character you hired?"
The spot was off-limits to disc jockeys from Modena.
It was the best spot in town.
It was always packed with beautiful people,
including beautiful girls. Let's just say, the elite of Modena.
An amazing spot, brimming with energy and beautiful music.
Packed with people.
It was his true home. He shone the brightest there.
And yes, there were the girls.
He wasn't famous yet, but he was the disc jockey.
They all flocked to him.
Vasco was genuinely fantastic.
Those blue eyes, his physique...
He'd leave his shirt unbuttoned to his navel. He was just cool.
The thing about the songwriters at Punto Radio...
We'd simply play tapes with our own songs.
Well, I...
I wrote them, Silvestri wrote them, and Bellei wrote them as well.
The radio station drew attention
from local people who were working with or were passionate about music,
who played music,
and who had ambitions, shall we say, to become composers.
There was this group of "Punto songwriters."
Vasco was one of them, and he stood out
with his unique knack for well-crafted lyrics
and the sound of his words.
Even the music was always... It was almost indefinable.
It wasn't a specific genre. He was creating his own genre.
Vasco always knew what he wanted to do with his songs.
I think the song that best shows this is "Albachiara."
He had begun arranging it on the piano with a mellow tone.
I stood up and said, "Enough. It's time to make some rock."
We flipped it around and started again.
When he suggested that to me,
my initial reaction was, "Surely not. It's so beautiful."
But later on, when I left the studio,
I couldn't stop thinking about it and wondered, "Could he be right?"
UNRELEASED VIDEO
Because this was his project.
He was the first to go down that path.
The record labels I talked to said,
"Sure, but what you're attempting can't be done in Italian."
But Vasco proved them wrong.
You can do anything in Italian if you can make it sound like he does.
Here it is.
This is the window where I saw the girl who inspired "Albachiara."
She actually arrived by bus, and as she got off, I watched her descend.
And I started telling this story.
I painted this image of a fresh-faced girl who was a student.
That was something rather unconventional in the '70s,
when, you know, studying wasn't exactly at the forefront of our lives.
130,000 TICKETS SOLD LOCARNO - MILAN - ROME
I recall the precise moment I wrote that song
because I was waiting for some friends to pick me up.
We were gonna go out that night.
While I waited for the doorbell,
within just a few minutes, I had written "Albachiara."
561,000 TICKETS SOLD MILAN - ROME - PERUGIA - FLORENCE
So, one day I told her.
By then, she had grown up.
I said, "You're the girl who inspired me to write 'Albachiara'."
She looked at me as if to say,
"You say that to all the girls you want to sleep with."
So, at that point,
in another burst of creativity, I felt like writing.
And I came up with "Una canzone per te."
"Didn't see that coming, did you?"
Scene 15-1, take five.
Don't move.
Can you hear me? One second.
This guitar has been my lifelong companion.
I don't play it anymore, you know? Not sure why.
One day, a man named Scandolara from Casalecchio came by.
He wanted to produce a show.
He said he had written a song for Mina.
So I thought, "Wow. Well, if..." I was immediately on board.
Anyone who'd written for Mina was someone important to me.
He later proved to be pivotal
when he introduced me to a man from Casalecchio
who produced liscio records.
He was a publisher called Borgatti.
We met this guy, Borgatti,
who came in and said, "Guys, I'll fund your record."
"Let's start with a 45 rpm."
Which was "Jenny," "Silvia," "Silvia," "Jenny."
"Let's see how it goes."
We had heard about a recording studio managed by Gianni Gitti.
We arrived and took our seats...
Well, it had a rather unique vibe.
Attila, the drummer, declined to set up his drum set.
"This isn't a recording studio."
So we left.
As we were driving back,
we spotted another recording studio called Fonoprint.
PRODUCER AND SOUND ENGINEER
Maurizio Biancani Nerozzi.
We're at the Fonoprint studio. I'm a sound engineer,
or as they say in Italy, the fonico.
I was working, listening to music,
when suddenly there was a knock on the door.
It's afternoon.
I open it, and there's this guy with blue eyes who asks me,
"Is this a recording studio?"
"Yes, it's a recording studio."
"It's called Fonoprint."
"Well, we need to make a record."
And that's when I first met Vasco Rossi.
What we liked was that Vasco was telling us things
that we in the industry had also noticed.
Lyrics were starting to really matter.
I believe the songs actually had...
I wouldn't have sung them otherwise.
They had a certain significance,
and they were good enough
to fit into the Italian music scene of the time.
So I was happy with my songs.
But I didn't expect them to become so successful. Not sure why.
UNRELEASED VIDEO RITUAL DISCO CLUB
The acoustic guitar in ...Ma cosa vuoi che sia una canzone...
is played by Vasco.
I found out he was already quite an accomplished guitarist by then.
He handled all the arpeggios
and had the right touch to complement his unique singing style.
And this first album became our business card.
It became his business card.
We were in the recording room, working on this album,
when an English guy walks by and listens to what we're doing.
He says, "Let me take this material to Milan."
"I'll play it for a record company there."
He introduced me to the artistic director, a man named Rapallo.
So we made this record,
and I remember bringing it along with me, to this club.
I showed it to my friends, the waiters, and everyone working here.
I'd say, "Look, I've made a record. It says Vasco Rossi on the cover."
"I make records."
Let's begin by taking a big step back.
This is the first song of my first LP.
Can you believe it? I started writing the song "La nostra relazione,"
but halfway through, I got discouraged because I thought, "It's not that great."
So I had Curreri listen to it,
and he told me, "No, keep going. It's beautiful."
Then came the line, "Let's not make a bed that's been unmade,"
which I believe is one of those inspired phrases
you have to thank the heavens and the guitar for.
Marco Andorra.
And Vasco Rossi. Amazing. Two newcomers.
Their first TV appearance, and maybe their first record too.
Let's ask Vasco Rossi.
-Is it your first record? -No, the second one.
-The second LP? -Album. Yes.
It's not been released yet.
-Based on your accent, you sound... -Yes, I'm Emilian.
-From? -Zocca.
-In the province of Modena. -The Emilian "Z" has a distinctive sound.
-Can you say it again? -Zocca.
"Zocca."
The record producer, Mr. Rapallo,
said to me, "Let's make another album. Do you have more songs?"
I played the songs for him, and the second album is born.
The amazing, the great... Yeah!
The greatest of all, Maurizio Solieri!
Eventually, I started collaborating with guitarist Maurizio Solieri.
He used to be a radio DJ in Zocca,
and he'd play the acoustic guitar.
He was performing these incredible solos.
I was amazed. "You play the guitar like a god."
I had written "Albachiara," and I said to Rapallo,
"Look, this is the best song. Place it at the beginning of side A."
But he always did what he wanted and never listened to me.
He ignored me and put it at the end of side B.
It shows he didn't really get what I was doing.
But it was fine as long as I could do what I wanted to do.
That was what mattered.
Doing what I wanted to do, without anyone acting like a censor,
and making records.
Everything else, who cares?
As we worked on the album and spent time together,
we discovered that we got along well.
We combined our money
and rented an apartment in Bologna.
I went to work around 9:00 or 9,30 a.m.
He'd come home at 5:00 a.m., acting like it was daytime.
He'd bring three, four, or even five people along,
and they'd start eating then in the dining room.
That'd wake me up. It was impossible to sleep.
UNRELEASED VIDEO
"Fegato, fegato spappolato" is a fantastic song. My first rap.
With every song I wrote, I was always experimenting with new ideas.
I started breaking up the lyrics in an unconventional way,
dividing them into fragments.
The group gathered at the bar, but Fini was never there of course.
He was always late.
That's where I got the lyrics, "Fini just woke up,
still half-asleep, too tired to even speak."
That, to me, seems the perfect description of Fini.
I know him like the back of my hand.
Just like he knows me.
At the first few concerts, I also helped out with technical tasks
since we had limited resources.
I recall a funny moment with Biancani,
who was already a professional.
I was standing on the side with a machine to control the lights.
I didn't know how to use it so I was reading the manual.
Biancani said, "Don't let anyone see you reading the manual."
There he is.
Look, there he is. Right there. That's him.
That's Bibi Ballandi,
the greatest producer in the history of humanity.
Let's pose like this.
Fly low to dodge the stones.
Behind the scenes, here. Fly low to dodge the stones.
Bibi always arranged everything for me. Then, one day, he said,
"I've organized a concert in Piazza Maggiore with Dalla's band."
I was going to play after a rally.
Just two days before the event, we found out
that Dalla never even considered lending his band.
He hadn't even considered it. It was all Bibi's idea, you know?
So I headed down to our rehearsal space
where Solieri was playing with his buddies.
I said, "I need your help. We've got a gig in Piazza Maggiore on Saturday night."
That's when the first band came together. That's when I met Guido.
He had this quirky way of looking because of his crooked eye,
and he played the congas.
Absolutely not. We don't embrace any labels.
They keep slapping labels on us,
and it's a struggle to peel them off.
Every single day.
The label that stuck the most, the hardest label to shed,
is the one that brands us as provincials.
We actually like the provinces.
We also like to swear.
I take care of them because they need to be taken care of.
Someone has to take care of them.
There's Vasco, then Andrea, Mimmo,
Maurizio, Massimo, Roberto.
Let's say that Bologna's Piazza Maggiore
is where I began experimenting with live concerts.
The beatniks who were there didn't throw stones at me,
but were sitting on the stairs without saying anything.
Around the stage, there were 50, 100 people,
the ones who knew me from the radio.
I did the concert,
and I thought, "That went well. We can keep doing concerts."
Go!
Then the Vicenza incident happened. We arrived at Vicenza's main square.
I started to sing, ready for anything.
But at a nearby bar, they started making paper darts
and throwing them at us.
So while I was singing "Jenny," these darts started coming at me.
I felt humiliated.
Humiliated on every level. Totally.
I couldn't wait to get off the stage and go home.
I thought, "I'm never going back, even if they offer me..."
Finally, I stepped down from the stage and got into the car.
As I drove home, tears of frustration welled up.
I don't know what clicked in my mind.
Maybe it was one of those defining moments.
I set aside my pride. I said, "No, you're gonna stay where you are."
"This is my job now. I'm a singer."
Next time, I'll smash your face.
No!
Hey, I'll do what I want, okay? No, that's it.
I didn't know that my father was about to pass away.
I remember that my father had purchased a car for me
even before I was old enough to drive.
He had parked it below the apartment and told me,
"Take a look out the window."
It was the Mini-Minor that my father had gifted me, you know?
Even before I had my driver's license. He had found a good deal.
It shows the kind of person Dad was.
He was a truck driver.
I was 23 or 24 years old.
Once I told him, "I'm coming with you."
"I want to experience your trips."
Back then, he would drive from Zocca to Trento.
We set off in the night, at 3:00 or 4:00 a.m.
I hadn't even gone to sleep yet
because, in my twenties, I usually went to bed at 6:00 a.m.
I got into the truck, settled onto the bed in the back,
and dozed off.
I slept like a log and only woke up when we were almost in Trento.
He was about to turn around.
He consistently drove at 80 kilometers per hour.
I was so fucking bored.
I said to him, "Come on, go faster."
"Fuck, you can't keep driving 80 kilometers per hour."
He didn't listen to me. He didn't even answer me.
At one point, he said, "Look, I go at this speed."
"Trust me, all those folks who rush past us,
they end up stopping for coffee."
"I never stop, and I get there before they do."
And that's what he did. He never stopped.
Of course, that day I had him stop at almost every rest area.
Once I needed to pee, then I got hungry, and once I couldn't bear it anymore.
It was quite a chaotic trip,
and I fucking irritated him a lot.
I really got on his nerves,
because I was his son, and that's just how I was.
And suddenly, my father died.
Ivana came in, woke me up, and said, "Your Dad has died."
Obviously, I was shocked.
I quickly became aware
that we had to pick him up from Trieste and sort out everything.
The apartment in Zocco where my mother and I lived
was about 70 to 80 square meters big.
He had managed to buy that apartment.
I recall the last time I saw him, he had put in double-glazed windows.
Then he left. That was the last time I saw him.
It's like he wanted to say, "See, everything's taken care of."
"With you two owning the house where you live and all,
I can leave feeling at peace,
after having busted my ass for my whole life."
I was already off on this concert journey.
I had a concert scheduled for Saturday at the Picchio Verde, I recall.
I didn't feel like it. I was thinking of not going, of quitting.
I was so dejected.
But then my mom told me, "Look, he would like you to go ahead and do it."
So, I went there with, well, that kind of mindset.
My father's sudden death was a complete shock.
But that's when my approach shifted.
From then on, I wasn't playing around, you understand? I wasn't joking anymore.
I was dead serious.
I composed songs. I sang them.
Anyone trying to stop me, I'd kill them.
Subtitle translation by: Alessia Sapori, Diana Renker