Nel blu

The story behind

Nel blu is a song that floats between the hypnotic and the dreamlike, with an air that seems taken from a dream where the Mediterranean blends with Italian folklore. It is not just a melody: it is a journey that begins softly, almost like a whisper, and gains strength until it envelops the listener in a climate where the ancestral and the modern clash without losing elegance. The piece has that ability to sound both ancient and fresh, as if it had always been there but only now someone had put it into words and chords.They recorded it in 2005, almost like a pause between two worlds: while Canzoni a manovella, their previous album, sounded like a dismantled circus, Ovunque proteggi —the album that contains it— arrived with a more intimate atmosphere and rich in nuances. The sessions took place mainly at the Officine Meccaniche in Mauro Pagani’s studio, a place where the noise of the machines mixed with pure creativity. By the time it was released, in January 2006 at the Chiesa di San Carpoforo in Milano, it had already been swirling in the mind of Vinicio Capossela for months, who at the time lived between Milano and his roots in Irpinia. The song itself lasts 5:15, but within that time entire landscapes fit: from the echo of the taverns in Romagna to the weight of the literary tradition that shaped it, passing through his obsession with sounds that feel grounded but never still.The album did not go unnoticed: in 2006 it won the Targa Tenco, and the following year Mojo magazine ranked it among the best of the year in its category. But beyond the awards, what remains is the feeling that Nel blu is not exhausted in a single listen. It is one of those pieces that beg to be played again and again, as if each time it reveals a new nuance, a new sigh between the chords.