Il canto

Luca Barbarossa, born in Rome in 1961, made his name at Sanremo in 1981 with Roma spogliata and won the festival in 1992 with Portami a ballare, a song about his mother. Il canto is credited to him as lyricist working with the composer Romano Musumarra, and reached an international audience through the tenor repertoire of crossover singers rather than through Barbarossa's own recordings. His writing sits in the Roman cantautore tradition — spoken cadence, local detail, plain guitar accompaniment — which makes the orchestral setting of this song untypical of him.