Senza Fine (Without End)
- veradapozzo8
- Mar 24
- 2 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
One of the most beautiful and intemporal Italian songs: Senza fine, by the great songwriter and singer Gino Paoli, composed in 1961 for Ornella Vanoni, one of the finest singers that Italy have ever spawned.
Born in the same year 1934, Ornella Vanoni and Gino Paoli were lovers first and very close friends later in their life.
Ornella died last November and Gino has followed her now in March: I guess they have found the Sky outside the Room.
I am not and I have never been fond of love songs because most of them are just sentimental and clueless: love is everywhere but in their sirupy and phoney lyrics; sometimes the music is good and I would rather hear the tune without words, but in most cases even the music irritates me.
Senza fine and Il cielo in una stanza are two notable exceptions because the music is great and the lyrics are simple, deep and really heartfelt; the latter was released in 1960 and was the first successful "serious" song in Mina's career. Mina is a great singer and I certainly will not deny it, nevertheless she is not among my favourite ones and I prefer Gino Paoli's own version of Il cielo in una stanza: his voice and the simple, true and deep feelings he put in his songs are more meaningful and appealing than Mina's emphatic vocal performance.
Senza fine sung by Ornella Vanoni in 1968 and by Gino Paoli in 1965.
On a personal note, I see a double meaning in Senza fine: "without end", in fact, means both "endless" and "schemeless", that is what real love means to me: a spontaneous, true, strong, earnest, tender, passionate, endless feeling without scheming.
Rest in peace, music and love, Ornella and Gino. Art is an eternal Spring.
P. S. Gino Paoli was a great songwriter because he felt what he wrote: all his best songs are very personal and heartfelt.
The very first Gino Paoli's song which entered my ears and heart is La gatta (The She-Cat), one of the first musical jewels crafted by Paoli in 1960.
My beloved Mamma used to sing La gatta to me when I was a baby and then a small child: I was so happy when my Mother sang to me or told me Giufà's tales she often invented.
I loved and still love the sweet, simple melody of La gatta and also the deep melancholy of its lyrics, which beautifully express the longing for a quiet, familiar place much loved and dearly missed: a modest garret near the sea, where the Poet lived in poverty but was happier, with his she-cat friend purring and a tiny star in the sky blinking to him when he played the guitar.
As if I already knew that, one day, I would have left my Home and my Familiar World would have never been the same since then, La gatta was my favourite lullaby.
Vera da Pozzo
Paris, 24th March 1926.
(C) Vera da Pozzo
(C) Italy is Mine
(C) Italy is Mine and It owes Me a Living
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