“Senza paura. La mia vita”, published by Salani, is the autobiography of Giulio Rapetti, recounting 60 years of music, thousands of songs and the fear that has marked him since childhood, blocking his relationships with others. Especially with girls.
He was anxious about not being loved and accepted, but then he realized that the real failure is not trying at all. The author translated these emotions into words in “I giardini di marzo” (The Gardens of March), performed by Lucio Battisti in 1972. The song speaks of his difficult and poor childhood, described with words of anguish that turn into hope.
He has always been associated with his successful and forward-thinking partnership with Lucio Battisti, which changed both their lives and began in 1965, ending in 1980 with the album Una giornata uggiosa (A Gloomy Day). The relationship between the two legends has been debunked: it is not true that they were fascists, they simply had no political affiliation and separated, without arguing, for financial reasons.
“Anyone who wasn’t on one side or the other was considered a fascist. Silence was taken as consent. They insinuated that Battisti was financing Ordine Nuovo and that the arms raised on La collina dei ciliegi were giving the Roman salute,” Rapetti explains how things went. Before the successful year of 1965, there was an equally positive encounter with Bob Dylan two years earlier in 1963, for whom he became the official translator.
That year marked the world debut in New York for the singer of Blowin’ in the Wind, which Mogol adapted himself, and it was an event that revolutionized the history of pop music. Before that, he had written for Giorgio Gaber and Adriano Celentano, and convinced Mina to record Il cielo in una stanza in 1960. His artistic history was marked by the presence of his father Mariano, a pianist who worked for Ricordi. The reason that led little Giulio to take up songwriting after graduating from accounting school was purely economic.
Mogol realized that knowledge of English could take him far and allow him to earn good money, so he began adapting and translating songs. Earning well, he then became a talent scout and subsequently achieved the feat that established him as an Italian music author. Mogol is keen to be defined as a craftsman of prosody, a lyrics writer, considering the term ‘paroliere’ (lyricist) to be circus-like, reductive, and offensive. To date, he has sold 523 million records worldwide, ranking third after Elvis and the Beatles. When talking about the lyrics he has written over the years, he explains: “They were songs where we could look at our fears.” He has always described men as fragile and women as bold: he had a very modern view of others.
After so many years of history and life, there are no regrets. His talent has been fully recognized, and he leaves an indelible mark on the history of national and international songwriting.
