The Story Of "Prisencolinensinainciusol,” The Gibberish ‘70s Pop Song That Proved Europeans Loved Anything They Even Thought Was American

Huh?

Published 4 months ago in Wow

Ever wonder how much lyrics matter when it comes to topping the charts? The answer is not a whole lot ... at least according to the success of if '70s Italian pop banger "Prisencolinensinainciusol," a track sung entirely in gibberish.

From the song's origins to its lasting legacy, here is how Milanese rocker Adriano Celentano's "Prisencolinensinainciusol" came to be.

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Prisencolinensinainciusol
Long before André 3000 sang “Y'all don't want to hear me, you just want to dance” in OutKast’s “Hey Ya!” one Italian pop star managed to prove that lyrics may not always matter, dropping a chart-topping song written in complete gibberish.

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Italian Rock Royalty
In the 1960s, Milanese artist Adriano Celentano was a force to be reckoned with in Italy’s rock scene, not only hitting the stage at 1960’s Sanremo Music Festival, but topping the charts with his 1961 hit, "24.000 baci."

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Penning Prisencolinensinainciusol
While creating the equally iconic and nonsensical track, Celentano didn’t mean to craft a novelty song. Instead, he wanted to use the single to draw attention to the struggles of language barriers.
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Lost In Translation
"Ever since I started singing, I was very influenced by American music and everything Americans did,” he explained of the work.

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“The Lyrics Didn’t Mean Anything”
“So at a certain point, because I like American slang—which, for a singer, is much easier to sing than Italian—I thought that I would write a song which would only have as its theme the inability to communicate," he continued. "And to do this, I had to write a song where the lyrics didn't mean anything.”
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On The Fly
And mean nothing they did. “Celentano didn't even write down the lyrics, but instead improvised them over a looped beat,” NPR reported back in 2012.
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Topping the Charts
All of this nonsense, it seems, ultimately paid off. Initially released in 1972, the song, which was featured on Celentano’s album ‘Nostalrock,’ charted in several countries, including Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands and West Germany. Even with this success, Celentano said, no one actually realized the song was not in English.

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An American Legacy
But it wasn’t just Italians that couldn’t get enough of the song. In 2012 The Guardian’s Andrew Khan described the song as “Dylanesque.” “The vocals are pure gibberish from start to finish – putting them in a similar category to much of Bob Dylan's own work from the 80s onwards,” he wrote.
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Rapping
But it's not just its lyrics that made the song stand out. Often incorrectly cited as the first rap song, Celentano has maintained that his track didn’t launch the genre. "From what I know, 10 years later, rap music exploded in the States," he recalled in a sit down with NPR. "I sang it with an angry tone because the theme was important. It was an anger born out of resignation. I brought to light the fact that people don't communicate."
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Playing On
Aside from its impact — or lack thereof — on the foundation of Hip Hop, the song has carved out a legacy of its own, appearing in several films and TV series including ‘Ted Lasso’ and ‘Fargo.’”