'Have you ever been to the moon?', The song by
Francesco De Gregori
that appears in Paolo Genovese's film of the same name a few years ago, was actually written for
Giorgia
, but she never recorded it, who knows why.
And so the prince took it back, modified it and used it for the film.
"He speaks of sentiment, but with plenty of malice", writes
Enrico Deregibus
in
'Francesco De Gregori.
The lyrics.
The story of songs',
a book that tells De Gregori's songbook from many points of view with extensive and detailed files.
There is no shortage of references to many interpreters of Italian music who, on the other hand, have sung De Gregori's songs, by
Ornella Vanoni
and
Fiorella Mannoia.
My Martini
she even sang a piece partly dedicated to her, "Mimì Sara", in what would have been her latest album, "La musica che gira giro", in 1994. The song had already been released on De Gregori's album " No man's land ”, in 1987, in one of the most difficult times for the singer, the victim of absurd rumors that labeled her as a lucky charm, making her life impossible.
De Gregori had met her some time before at a dinner where no one wanted to take a seat next to her.
He did it by reading loneliness, suffering in her eyes.
After some time on a bridge in Rome, the singer-songwriter will meet a woman very similar to Mimi, with a little girl by the hand.
Thus the idea of the song will take off, but choosing not to say, at that moment, who it was inspired by.
The admission will come only twenty years later, when De Gregori will remember Mia Martini as follows: "She was a really nice person, good, unhappy in life for ten thousand reasons. She was a great artist. When she came to Rome for concerts I always went to once I even sent her a bouquet of flowers. There was a relationship not of everyday life but of esteem ", reports Deregibus. These and many other information and revelations can be found in the volume, which recounts De Gregori's songbook also reporting the texts of all the songs, checked and certified in first person by De Gregori. An imposing volume, of over 700 pages, which concludes Deregibus's work on the Roman artist started with "Francesco De Gregori. You can read me until late", the full-bodied biography of the singer-songwriter published in 2015. In 2016 the same author created the volume included in the “Backpack” box (Sonymusic), which contains thirty-two CDs by De Gregori.