Language of Love
It’s a well known fact that Italian is the language of love. And if you’ve ever tried to take a train to Palermo with a stranger’s hand in your pants, I think you know what I mean.
But even if you haven’t, you’ve certainly seen Fabio at the salad bar at Ralph’s, and that’s almost the same thing.
So because Etsy is down (biscotti crumbs in the router), and because you’ve been so receptive to the music I’ve been posting lately (I stopped reading your hate mail), I thought I’d post some mp3s in Italian. But not just any mp3s… these are Motown mp3s!
Yes, the hits you’ve come to love, painfully and phonetically sounded out by the original artists. The Temptations, Marvin Gaye, The Supremes, all stammering their way through those cadenza e blues like natural born paisans!
I even found a track by Stevie Wonder, for Christ’s sake. And if he can play piano with one hand, read Italian braille with the other and sing at the same time, the least you can do is listen to a few mp3s. Lazy bastard.
Solo Te, Solo Me, Solo (Stevie Wonder)
Yesterme, Yesteryou, Yesterday
Solamente Lei (The Temptations)
My Girl
Gira Gira (Four Tops)
Reach Out (I’ll Be There)
Sei Solo Tu (The Temptations)
The Way You Do The Things You Do
Piangono Glo Vomini (The Four Tops)
Can’t Help Myself
L’Amorre Verra (The Supremes)
Can’t Hurry Love
Se Decidi Cosi (Jimmy Ruffin)
What Becomes of the Broken Hearted
Chi Mi Aiutera (The Supremes)
You Keep Me Hanging On
L’ Arcobaleno (The Four Tops)
Walk Away Renee
BONUS: All right, maybe it isn’t Motown. But I couldn’t exactly resist, could I?
Regazza Solo (David Bowie)
Major Tom
Ciao, bella!
July 30, 2012 at 2:42 pm
These are mesmerizing. I can’t stop listening.
July 30, 2012 at 6:07 pm
I think I would love reach out in any language. Going to go sing it in my car now with the windows rolled up. SAFETY FIRST
July 31, 2012 at 8:04 am
holy shit my in laws are Italian 1st gen AND love Motown.
this is full of all kinds of win
July 30, 2012 at 2:42 pm
I think I shall play all of these for my ESL students. And then test them on the material.
July 30, 2012 at 2:44 pm
Oh I like this! Even my parrot approves, and he hates everything but The Doors.
July 30, 2012 at 7:27 pm
My parrot simply likes noise.
July 30, 2012 at 8:31 pm
Your parrot has good taste. So, does it hate Led Zeppelin? Because that would be sad.
July 30, 2012 at 9:43 pm
Thankfully he likes Led Zeppelin, although I am having trouble teaching him the lyrics to Stairway to Heaven. My dh did teach him to whistle the andy griffith show theme song though >.<
July 31, 2012 at 9:04 am
have you ever seen the parrot who whistles Mozart’s Die Zuaberflote?
He starts at 40 secs in: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWh_2Iit3Ek&feature=plcp
July 31, 2012 at 9:04 am
DERP zauberflote
July 31, 2012 at 7:43 pm
THAT is some kinda awesome.
July 30, 2012 at 2:44 pm
But I thought the router fell into a vat of fermenting cabbage.
July 30, 2012 at 2:47 pm
No, no. The router was made from repurposed milk cartons and barnwood. I think it was mistaken for food by a hungry intern.
July 30, 2012 at 3:20 pm
No, no, it was mustache wax.
July 30, 2012 at 3:50 pm
No, while they were bedazzling it they got hot glue in the cooling vents.
July 30, 2012 at 4:09 pm
Scary to think that it sounds like a reasonable explanation.
July 30, 2012 at 9:56 pm
I have a sudden urge to bedazzle the shit out of my electronics now.
July 30, 2012 at 2:44 pm
These are better than Abba:Oro!
July 30, 2012 at 2:46 pm
Never thought I’d say this, but David Bowie in his wild years sounds even freakier in Italian. And yup. I just have to download it. It’ll sound so great at parties coming out just after Mambo Italiano.
July 30, 2012 at 7:52 pm
July 31, 2012 at 4:36 pm
agreed! I am going to need download Bowie in italian
July 30, 2012 at 2:47 pm
David Bowie is even scarier in Italian.
July 30, 2012 at 3:12 pm
When I first heard that David Bowie once sung with Bing Crosby, my face apparently did this weird “thing”… when it was actually really sweet and really quite heartbreaking, I think I cried like a baby. I was expecting David Bowie to show up dressed like his Ziggy Stardust character and scare the bejeesus out of Bing.
July 31, 2012 at 9:08 am
I remember watching that live on television. Now I feel old.
July 30, 2012 at 3:53 pm
Not scary at all. Just awesome.
But I listened to PFM in high school (PFM==Premiata Forneria Marconi – translation ‘Marconi’s premium bakeshop’) which was an Italian prog rock band that could play in the style of Yes, ELP and King Crimson. They released 4 albums in Italian and then they were discovered (by Keith Emerson, if memory serves) and released all the songs with English lyrics written by Pete Sinfield (of King Crimson). I have the Italian and English versions of all their albums.
Thus endeth the music history lesson.
July 31, 2012 at 7:43 am
This implies that “Premiata Porneria” would be a great name for my new Italian website.
July 30, 2012 at 2:50 pm
i need to download all of these…awesome
August 1, 2012 at 9:41 pm
I’m working my way through listening and downloading. They must be added to my itunes menagerie of strange and
hilariouswonderful sounds from the internet. THEY MUST.July 30, 2012 at 2:50 pm
Early Motown, in any language is music of the gods, do do do do do do do do da dah la la la la la la MY GIRL!
July 30, 2012 at 2:57 pm
OK so this was also released as an LP called “Nero Italiano” in case that makes downloads easier to find for people.
July 30, 2012 at 3:55 pm
Ehm… is that “Black Italian”?!
July 30, 2012 at 4:55 pm
Yup!
Nero is the Italian word for the color black. It can also refer to dark or tanned skin. It can also mean awful or terrible. Make of that what you will.
July 30, 2012 at 3:06 pm
The songs of my youth… I only hope when the dementia sets in these don’t replace the original tapes in my head. Because, you know, I don’t understand Italian.
Even though my first boyfriends were Italians (it worked better that way). Go Bridgeport, Connecticut!
July 30, 2012 at 3:15 pm
My Girl by The Temptations is my all time favourite, but Italian version feels off-tune-ish.
I wonder how “get ready” would’ve sound in Italian.
July 30, 2012 at 3:21 pm
There is something about Diana Ross’s careful enunciation of the Italian version of “You Can’t Hurry Love” that is absolutely endearing and priceless. Thank you so much for sharing this with us.
July 30, 2012 at 3:35 pm
very cool and weird listening to Bowie….
I have a copy of Bowie Singing “Heros” (Helden?) in German and its really good.
July 31, 2012 at 9:13 am
TaalandGassy – Bowie spent years in Germany, he actually did a film with Marlene Dietrich where he played a gigolo. Its a godawful film, but the years of his career post-Ziggy he was known as the Thin White Duke and much of this time was spent in Germany, studying art, painting and acting.
If its not obvious, I spent a LOT of time obsessed with DB and have file folders full of information about him in storage.
The Tin Machine years distressed me greatly even if he was working with Soupy Sales’ sons/s…
July 30, 2012 at 4:07 pm
Even better, a German lounge singer doing American pop hits:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYr9kIyambE
July 30, 2012 at 4:27 pm
Oh my god, this is the best thing that I have ever heard.
July 30, 2012 at 7:37 pm
Did you hear his “We Will Rock You”?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3O-PLopk5g&feature=related
It’s erstaunlich!
July 31, 2012 at 3:59 pm
I absolutely love the old-timey accent.
July 31, 2012 at 4:41 pm
check out his version of Mambo #5 there’s something amazing about hearing the old timey voice sing “Everybody to the liquor store. Come on lets ride!”
July 30, 2012 at 4:09 pm
Is it wrong that I LOVE these? Like I would buy this album kind of love…
July 30, 2012 at 4:10 pm
Was this released to commemorate FIAT’s takeover of Chrysler?
July 30, 2012 at 4:20 pm
Mille gracie, Regretsy!
July 30, 2012 at 4:57 pm
I’m speechless.
After that, I want to throw Stevie the car keys and say “you drive!”, I have no doubt he could do it.
July 30, 2012 at 5:00 pm
OH MY GOD. I need to give a copy of this to my Italian dad. All he ever listens to are these same exact songs in English, and typical Italian music of the same era. It’s like the best combo ever!
July 30, 2012 at 5:03 pm
This… this is amazeballs.
My favourite is the bonus, though. Time to listen to some more Italian Major Tom.
July 30, 2012 at 5:13 pm
If you speak German, “Schock den Affen” (Shock the Monkey) is fun, because instead of shocking the monkey to life, you shock the monkey in its sleep. Which I have always found strangely awesome. http://youtu.be/fiHAmKAE_ZE
July 30, 2012 at 5:15 pm
Yes, this is great. HK, I remember when you had the old website (A blog called “April Winchell”), you had oddball and otherwise unlistenable mp3′s. One really memorable one, if I recall, was Johnny Cash singing “I Walk the Line” in German.
July 30, 2012 at 5:15 pm
Now all we need is an Italian version of, ‘Tell Jesus to come sit on your Heart’
July 30, 2012 at 5:18 pm
…Anybody here who can actually follow the Italian lyrics? From the bit I can tell, Regazza Solo has fuck-all to do with Major Tom….
July 30, 2012 at 5:22 pm
I can understand enough of it to tell you that it is a love story about two people who meet on a mountain top.
So basically, yeah it has fuck-all to do with Major Tom.
July 31, 2012 at 7:52 am
Welllllll, Italy doesn’t really have a space program so that’s all the closer they’re getting to marooning a man in orbit.
July 31, 2012 at 4:12 am
It’s about a love story, this boy is walking alone and depressed in the city thinking about this girl’s eyes and voice. Although the lonely boy has lost his big love, Bowie tries to console him that “the town is full of possible loves”. This apparently doesn’t help (in his eyes she is “an angel who can fly no more” – aww). The lyrics get worse, with “the colours of life” and “blue skies”… No mountain tops though.
Bowie is actually not that bad at pronouncing Italian.
July 30, 2012 at 5:23 pm
Oh, heeheehee. Diana Ross’s voice does have this definite “I can’t tell what I’m saying when but it will be PRONOUNCED CORRECTLY” tone to it. (Which is why voice majors, at least at my alma mater, were forced to write out word-for-word translations for songs in other languages so as to know which words to emphasize. Ah, memories.)
July 30, 2012 at 6:13 pm
These are GREAT. HK – you are my most-est, favorite-est, person on the
interwebsinternet that I don’t really know. You find/have the most amazeballs stuff, you are cool times two.July 30, 2012 at 6:20 pm
Now I have something to listen to when I get tired of Petula Clark singing in French.
(Her “Dans le Temps,” set to the music of “Downtown,” has nothing to do with the original song.)
July 30, 2012 at 7:15 pm
These BLEW MY MIND.
And given that I have spent the last several days immersing myself in a Soprano’s marathon (yeah, I saw them in real time way back when but am re-living the delicious-ness), I can’t help but think these would have been a great addition to the fab sound track.
That’s amore!
July 30, 2012 at 7:23 pm
Where the fuck does she get all these wonderful links?!??
July 30, 2012 at 9:29 pm
Excuse me, I need to go wash with some Josh Groban in my bunk.
July 30, 2012 at 9:45 pm
have you really seen fabio at ralph’s?
was it rock & roll ralphs on sunset?
July 31, 2012 at 8:01 am
I’m sure these exact songs first helped Silvio Berlusconi get his freak on. Who knew said freak would still be freakin’?
July 31, 2012 at 11:19 am
Umm….am I the only one getting a stupid Flash error on these? I’m up to date….gah….
July 31, 2012 at 4:01 pm
This is taking me back to college italian. Those were some great classes.
July 31, 2012 at 7:40 pm
I started playing the last one, without comment, while my husband was sitting at the table. As the music swelled, he got a pensive look on his face, and then said, “I know this song. What is it?” I told him, and he said, “It’s in Italian? I think I have that recording.”
I believe this is proof positive that April may actually be my husband in disguise.
August 1, 2012 at 1:26 am
Hey, about 15 years ago I saw Fabio driving a black Mercedes through an intersection on Sunset Blvd. Does that somehow make me closer to fame, glory and God? All of my life living in L.A., and the only celebs I “encounter” are Fabio in a Benz and Tina Yothers in MayCo. Oh yeah, a balding Ted Danson at some elementary school event (no, my kid didn’t get to go there). I probably would have seen more celebs in Kansas City than in L.A.
August 1, 2012 at 9:59 pm
In Cleveland, Tennessee (of all places) there was a great Chinese buffet that would often play a CD of Chinese covers of ABBA songs – traditional instruments and everything. It was amazing, in every way you can possibly take that statement. I wish all Italian restaurants in the USA would do the same with Italian Motown, just as a nice WTF break between all the Sinatra.