Parole, parole

Parole, parole was written in 1972 for the Italian television programme Teatro 10, whose musical director was Gianni Ferrio; Leo Chiosso and Giancarlo Del Re supplied the text. Mina sang it while the actor Alberto Lupo spoke his lines over the accompaniment — a device taken from theatre rather than from the record industry. The French version made the following year by Dalida with Alain Delon carried it across Europe and beyond, and it has since been recorded in more than a dozen languages, usually keeping the spoken-and-sung division intact.