SecondThis is not the only song about inflation in pop history. In 1983, when the inflation rate in the United States was only 3.8%, BB King sang an “Inflation Blues”, which was a bit sweet (“Mr. President/Please lower the price of sugar/I want to sweeten my coffee”). The Berlin band “The Whitest Boy Alive” of Erlend Oye, Norway, used the term inflation again in 2015 to describe the haiku of the fate of love (“Half-Life/One Kiss/Inflation”). This is very appropriate, because the purchasing power of Berlin did not decrease significantly at that time.
In 1976, when Adriano Celentano released his record “Svalutation” in Italy, there was not only a price increase but also no self-reinforcing effect. On the contrary, the actual inflation rate averaged 16.5% and 20%; by the way, in Germany, we again have the same 4% today. The audience lamented that everything was no longer normal, and they took this song to fourth place in the Italian charts. We kept silent about what the Italians preferred to hear at the time.
Celentano’s hits before that deal more with the usual important topics: I’m going crazy when you are away (Impazzo per te), you are here, I am with you now (Nata per me), away from me, There are other women (Stai lontana da me). Of course, in Paolo Conte’s “Azzuro” (“Azzuro”) written for him, in the lonely, azure afternoon, even the pastor is bored (“neanche un prete per chiacchierar”). Gradually, Celentano began to see more of these lines that are common in popular songs.
In the early 1970s, trained watchmakers became more political and economical. For example, in “Chi non lavora non fa l’amore”, he praised his wife and made it clear to him that idlers cannot count on any dedication. So he went to work, and other people in Italy went on strike for two of the three days, from the tram driver to the doctor. The big dilemma: If you don’t be beaten, you will be beaten, and there will be no love. The norms of the family and the norms of professional life are falling apart, and love is not united. Serentano’s very Italian solution at the time was to ask the boss, Mr. Padrone, to raise his salary. If approved, love will re-enter every family.
Productive crisis
However, in business, with so much employer-sponsored love, the value of money will decline. Because of course the boss puts the cost of love above the price. In “Svalutation”, the devaluation is described as just like today. Gasoline costs are getting higher and higher, the lira “concession and falling”, there is a hole in the state of the money flowing out, and all resorts are fully booked. Celentano also exaggeratedly claimed that it now adds a month’s salary to a cup of coffee. In the words of Marty Stewart, “the last month is too much money.” There is consumption and the venues are overcrowded, but what about the money? An eternal question, although the point of this song is actually not too little overall money, but too much.
Other crisis issues have also emerged: the Americanization of Italy (“l’America è qua”), the continuous change of government (and then from Moro to Andreotti), the violation of right-wing traffic for more than three decades, and the armed The Red Brigade (“Assassination, Assassination”) at the peak of violence.
The rhyming “Svalutation” is not an Italian word at all, but the Anglicization of “svalutazione”. Celentano’s lyrics writers Vito Pallavacini and Luciano Beretta died during this period. They found other words ending in “ion”—usually only e, a, and u rhyming—and mixed criticism of the word into some of the songs. The “value” of nonsense. It can almost be said that if the blow is carried out in such a determined bad mood, the blow itself will fall into a productive crisis.If you don’t know him, check out Adriano Serentano on YouTube Songs from French TV ShowsThe singer snapped his fingers, refused to get up within three minutes, kept his head down, and when he sat down to listen to rock music, his movements became wilder and wilder, but at the end he was full of moving confidence: Italy will succeed, and this will be afterwards. System: When you think about yourself, think about “pensa…”-and a little bit of me. A little bit, there is no need to ask anything.
