L'appuntamento (Sentado à beira do caminho)

L'appuntamento is not just a song: it is the moment when the voice of Ornella Vanoni becomes a sigh that lingers in the air. Recorded in 1970, it sounds as if time had stopped in that precise instant when someone waits without knowing whether it will arrive or not. The lyrics, in Italian and Portuguese, play with that ambiguity: the title in Italian ("the appointment") and the subtitle in Portuguese ("sentado à beira da estrada") already warn that there is no rush, but neither are there certainties. The song won the *Mostra Internazionale di Musica Leggera di Venezia* that same year, something that comes as no surprise when the chorus sticks in the memory like an echo that cannot be erased.