Finisce qui

There are songs that are recorded in a couple of hours and end up as a draft, and others that are born on stage and end up on the album almost by accident. Finisce qui is one of the latter: Ornella Vanoni took it to the program Senza rete in 1970, where she performed it live, and shortly after it was included in the album Appuntamento con Ornella Vanoni. It wasn’t meant to be a commercial hit —in fact, the album includes tracks that had already been featured in other festivals—, but the way the singer interpreted it gave it a different weight. At just two minutes and forty-five seconds, the song has an intensity that doesn’t fade, as if every note were crafted to close something that will never return.

The album Appuntamento was released in 1970 and, although it wasn’t a collection of new songs, it gathered some of her biggest hits from previous years. Finisce qui shared the tracklist with songs that had competed in Sanremo or Canzonissima, but this piece stood out for its simplicity: no backing vocals, no embellishments, just Ornella’s voice and an accompaniment that doesn’t distract. It reached fifth place in sales, which at the time wasn’t common for an artist who had already been in the spotlight for over a decade. What’s curious is that, despite not being the main single, it ended up being one of those songs people remember when thinking about her repertoire from that era.