L'Italiano

"L'Italiano (Lasciatemi Cantare)" (commonly known as "L'Italiano") is an Italian pop song by Toto Cutugno released in 1983. It was his biggest international hit and is his best-known composition. The song was forgotten during the 1990s and was re-discovered when Toto Cutugno performed it live at a charity concert in Rome commemorating Italy's victory at the 2006 FIFA World Cup, creating a new wave of popularity for this song.^[1]

Recordings

This song was originally intended for Adriano Celentano, who turned it down.

On the year Cutugno released his hit, Kari Tapio, a Finnish singer, recorded a Finnish cover with the title "Olen suomalainen" (I'm a Finn), published on an album with the same name.

This song was copied by Indian music duo Sanjeev-Darshan for the movie "Mann".

In 1984, Doron Mazar, an Israeli singer recorded a cover to this song, titled "Ani Hozer HaBayta" ("I am returning home").^[2]

In 2011, the song was released on the famous party band The Gypsy Queens eponymous album The Gypsy Queens. The song became a successful cover for the band when they released a video clip of the song (produced by Didier Casnati) featuring Italian actress Caterina Murino, and reached several million views on YouTube in only a couple of weeks.

Brazilian singer José Augusto recorded the song in Portuguese as Faz de Conta.

French singer Hervé Vilard recorded the song in French as "Méditerranéenne".

Austrian-Italian singer Patrizio Buanne recorded his version in album "The Italian" in 2005.

Vietnamese Singer Đàm Vĩnh Hưng recorded his version in Vietnamese as "Say Tình" in 2001

References