"Prisencolinensinainciusol": How Adriano Celentano's meaningless song became an immortal hit

Surely you have ever sung songs in foreign languages unknown to you as you hear them. It sounds funny, but only in the performance of an ordinary music lover. If a pop star gets down to business, then it may well turn out to be a real hit that will be loved even after half a century. The brainchild of Adriano Celentano with the strange name "Prisencolinensinainciusol" is an example of the fact that a good song does not need meaning at all.

The fashion for everything American came to sunny Italy after the end of the Second World War. It was with the entry of American troops into Rome in June 1944 that a period of peace and creation began for the country. After recovering a little, the Italians began to create cultural products, which they were inspired by films, songs and books brought by the liberators from the United States.

The fashion for everything overseas reigned in Italy from the beginning of the 50s to the beginning of the 80s and during this time many not the worst film products and pop hits were created. In 1972, the increasingly popular singer Adriano Celentano, together with his wife Claudia Mori, recorded the song "Prisencolinensinainciusol" ("Prisencolinensinainchusol").

Agree, the name is not quite ordinary and it immediately becomes clear that the song is not Italian. After listening to it, many Celentano fans who are not too familiar with languages will confidently say that it is in English. And they will be mistaken, because this hit song is sung in a language that never existed.

Phonetically, the lyrics of the song are very similar to English, and its style is American. But in fact, the inventor Celentano simply rhymed a set of non-existent words into a completely meaningless text. It was a bright and bold experiment for its time, today it is clear to us that the master of the Italian stage even used rap, unknown to anyone in the 70s.

For almost a year, the song was played at Celentano concerts and did not arouse much interest among the public. Her finest hour struck a year later, in 1973, when the singer performed it on Public Television in Italy. The meaningless song quickly became popular in his homeland, and then something unexpected happened even for Adriano himself – it began to lead one after another the charts in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark. In the same year, she reached the US charts, where she confidently began to occupy places in the top ten.

They forgot about" Prisencolinensinainciusol " only in the early 80s, but it turned out that it was too early to write off the hit in "gibberish". For some reason, the song became popular again in 2010, although not on radio and television, but on the Internet. They started listening to her, discussing and posting recordings from concerts on YouTube. Then came the remixes from professional and not-so-professional artists from different countries.

Of course, the author of the smash hit did not stay away either. At that time, 72-year-old Adrianano Celentano did not even suspect that decades after writing a mischievous song, he would have to tell about it. The singer explained to journalists that although the text "Prizenkolinensinainchuzol" does not make sense, the song itself is very thoughtful. Working on it, Celentano wanted to touch on the problem of communication between people from different countries, with whom there have always been problems due to language and mentality.

According to Celentano, he wanted to write a song that would unite people from different countries and make them equal when listening to it. It seems that everything worked out for him.