Gianni Morandi announces, from his home in San Lazzaro in Savena where he lives with his wife Anna, his new tour to celebrate his 60-year career.
With this announcement, Morandi reminds us that great passions never fade, letting fans know that he never thinks about retiring from music and that he wants to follow the example of Charles Aznavour, the French artist who died the day before his final concert at the age of 94.
If it is true that every ending coincides with a new beginning, then what knows no end is destined to last forever.
“C’era un ragazzo – Gianni Morandi Story”, already sold out and named after one of his signature songs—a true pacifist anthem—marks the return of one of the most beloved voices in Italian music.
Morandi, at 81, is returning to Italian arenas with a new single, written by Jovanotti, titled “Monghidoro” after his hometown.
In the song’s music video—a fun, Blues Brothers-style clip—we see a young “ramshackle” Gianni, as he describes himself, wearing suspenders. It feels like a sort of return to his roots, to where it all began—a flashback that prompts the artist to take a step back and a step forward: from his origins to the present, marked by wars, in search of a better future, using music as his tool.
“Monghidoro” is the song he’ll open his concerts with, and in the music video he says: “I don’t even look like myself; I didn’t know where to put my hands.”
The first live concert is scheduled for April 15 in Conegliano and will likely feature his friend Jovanotti on stage, while he might duet with his son Tredici Pietro in Milan and sing “Vita,” hoping Pietro doesn’t change his mind; the young man, fresh from the latest Sanremo, seems to be a fickle sort, as his father recently stated.
While Morandi prepares for this new beginning with his usual enthusiasm, training every day like an athlete, he reveals his other major goal: spreading messages of peace. “Sixty years ago, we rebelled against the Vietnam War,” explained the Bolognese artist, and “I’d like to say something about what’s happening, make a mention of Trump and Putin; I’m working with the writer Federico Taddio: it won’t be a political tour, but the idea that they can decide our lives bothers me,” added Morandi, noting that music’s other great power is to convey messages of peace and hope. Today we dream of an end to wars that threaten to bring the world to its knees, and the past and present resemble each other more than ever.
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Moving from the present to the past, Morandi let himself go, recounting meaningful anecdotes from the early years of his career. It was 1958 when his father gave him 500 lire—his allowance for four months; at the time, a slice of watermelon cost 25 lire—and asked him to keep track of his expenses: those were the years when he worked in Riccione during the summer, the period when he began his great ascent in the music world, starting from a small experience—
Of the big names in music he met along the way, he spoke of their greatness, unpredictability, and madness: among them, the name of Lucio Dalla stands out. When they performed together at the Auditorium in Bologna, the lights went out; he lit a small candle and began to vocalize: the crowd went wild. It was Dalla himself, his friend from Bologna, who nicknamed Morandi the “psycho from Monghidoro.”
How many anecdotes and how many more could be told in sixty years of music: a life of encounters and experimentation.
From television to cinema, the voice behind “Fatti mandare dalla mamma” was, however, rarely a songwriter: of his entire repertoire of 600 songs, he wrote only 40. Shy by nature—it’s said that as a young man he was awkward and the first time he saw himself on TV he hid in a bar—yet he was far-sighted and determined.
The tireless Gianni wants to look to the future, with us, at a time when tomorrow can only be defined today, yet seems more frightening than yesterday.
