In 1972 an Italian rock star wrote a hit song with no words in it.

Not a love song. Not a ballad. A three-minute track sung entirely in gibberish.

His name was Adriano Celentano, and the song is called Prisencolinensinainciusol.

Say that three times fast. Nobody can, which is part of the joke.

Here is what he did.

Celentano listened to American rock songs on the radio and noticed something. As an Italian, he could not understand a single word. But he loved them anyway. The sound alone made him want to move.

So he wrote a song that sounds exactly like English to someone who does not speak it. The rhythm is there. The swagger is there. The confident American drawl is there. The meaning is not, because the words mean absolutely nothing.

Only two real words survive in the whole thing: "all right."

His point was bigger than a gag. He wanted to show that people can feel each other across a language they do not share. That communication starts in the sound, in the music of a voice, long before the dictionary shows up.

My favorite proof that he nailed it is a comment under the video:

"That's how my drunk Italian grandfather would sing American songs."

I laughed for a full minute.

Now flip the whole thing around.

That is exactly how Italian works on your ear before you understand it. Musical. Rhythmic. Full of open vowels that rise and fall like they are trying to sing even when they are just ordering coffee.

This is the part I care about most in my Belonging in Italy program. Not vocabulary lists. The sound. Getting your mouth to make the shapes, catching where the stress lands, feeling the melody of the language before the grammar ever arrives.

Celentano faked English and made the world dance. You are going to do the opposite. Learn the real music of Italian, and one day the sound will come out of your own mouth without you thinking about it.

Watch this and tell me it does not make you smile:

​Celentano, Prisencolinensinainciusol, Rai 1973​

Now, a question.

I have been cooking something up with Plinny, an Italian voice coach who works with singers. A live masterclass on singing in Italian and using it to fix your pronunciation for good. The music and the mouth, together, in one session.

Would you be interested?

Fabiana