Last spring when I was in the French Alps for about a week, one of the first nights I spent nestled in my own little apartment (for which keys Antoine had given me when we parted company in Paris; his family owns the apartment), happy as a clam. I had made dinner with exquisite groceries then relaxed to watch TV. I was lucky to have about 5 channels. Two were Italian and the other three were French.
One night on Italian TV, there was a music show that had contestants, of which I gathered were teams made of one celebrity and one non-celebrity. I say this because one celebrity looked just like Fabio Grosso of Italy's national soccer team. But as he was all decked out in jeans, a Marilyn Monroe TShirt and blazer, I wasn't sure until...they introduced him as Fabio Grosso and the crowd went crazy. He was the hero that made the last penalty kick for Italy to win the 2006 World Cup.
So here was one of our favorite Italians, with a microphone. I wondered if he was going to sing and, what that would sound like. He has a great voice and sang beautifully. It was pure pleasure to watch his equally great presence on stage as if he did this all the time. It appeared as though his club team (Lyon, France, actually for the last two years) perhaps just gave their players a night off once they won the league championship...
He sang a song after his 'competition' (he didn't win; couldn't tell you why not) that was very high-spirited and as fun to listen to as it must have been to sing, which the entire crowd did. I figured it must have been a 'soccer song' because they have those in Europe...here, sports songs like this? Not so much.
Fast forward one year...I get an email from the wonderful Steve Amoia, who is one of my new best friends. He writes extremely well on many subjects including his favorites...Italian football and world soccer. He forwarded me the link to his Calcio website that includes a 'best of the web' list of articles and videos on all sorts of splendid things, including Italy's national team.
One video is "Azzurri Players Singing". It is a charity singfest by the national team from about four or five years ago and includes some of the present top players.
Can I guess how many times I've watched this? They are singing Azzurro, the same song I first heard by the beautiful Fabio Grosso one year ago. (Azzurro is the color blue, in Italian.)
Fabulous. I am in heaven, because now, at least 23 Fabio Grosso types are singing joyfully, and they sound - and look - fantastic. The solos by some of the biggest stars are especially impressive. The jazzy, sexy bridge between verses backs up footage of them goofing off and having too much fun.
At the end, the bonus minutes show a commercial, set in the dark, starring one beautiful goalkeeper (but this was before Buffon's time), then 5 or 6 other players at the end. They're all wearing Under Armour type clothing.
So worth a look.
Now I am addicted to the entire video and am on a tear to learn the Azzurro song. The lyrics are neither complicated or difficult; it's a little story about the summer and taking a train "to come to you".... something like that.
My favorite line is about "the train of desires in my thoughts".
Yum. That would definitely be worth the price of a ticket.
Even in twice-the-dollar Euro.
No comments:
Post a Comment