I hate it when I get a tune in my mind and can’t get rid of it. It happens all the time. Usually I have to think of another song and start singing it to myself to over-ride the original, irritating song. My wife and I have a deal that we don’t mention the name of the song to each other, for fear of spreading the disease. It has been known to happen to us. I guess tunes are infectious.
That happened to me earlier in the week. I must have been in a store or some place where the classic pop song, Volare, was playing in the background. It was the original (at least original to me) sung by Dean Martin, the crooner from my childhood. There have been a zillion other singers who have recorded it, but Martin is the culprit this time. My method of over-riding was effective on a temporary basis, but the tune keeps popping up in my mind. My thought is that maybe writing about it will clear it.
Volare isn’t the best piece of pop music ever written, but it’s also not the worst. It has a catchy Italian tune, the lyrics are consistent and romantic, and it isn’t a grating song…even though it seems to be persistent. It’s the Italian phrase (the actual title of the tune by Domenico Modugno) Nel blu dipinto di blu, that is so catchy. It translates into blue sky, the beautiful blue sky. The song was at the top of the charts in 1958.
The theme of the song is a profession of love which asks the lover to join him in flying away to the sky. That’s a great metaphor meaning to take off on a love venture which is out of this world. To soar with the birds. To touch the clouds. To hear the sound of the wind rushing by as the two of you soar beyond the cares and conditions of the world. It is pure romantic escape.
Love songs of the early fifties and sixties were very romantic, untouched as yet by the tensions and political infusions of the later sixties and seventies. There was a sensation of isolation, in which the couple were unhooked from the rest of civilization and able to exist within their bubble of romance. Nothing could touch them, interrupt them, or bring the harshness of reality to them.
It was the end of an era of innocence, and like virginity, unable to be reclaimed after the rape of the late sixties and seventies. The reality of an unpopular war, the Nixon era, the explosion of the drug culture, and the shock of three successive assassinations in this country jolted us out of romantic love into a place of cynicism and free-wheeling sexual freedom seldom connected to romance.
Maybe that’s why songs like Volare catch in your brain and won’t allow themselves to be shaken loose…at least not easily. Oh, to be able to soar with the birds and be truly free from the cares of the world. It has been enjoyable to spend the time writing this, but the truth is that reality calls, and the return to responsibilities of the present is inevitable.
Photo Credit: hickerphoto.com
