You Wanna Be Americano
“Tu vuò fà l’americano” (You want to play the American) is a Neapolitan language song by Italian singer Renato Carosone.
Carosone wrote the song in 1956 together with Nicola “Nisa” Salerno. Combining swing and jazz, it became one of his best known songs.Commissioned by Ricordi director Rapetti for a radio contest, the music was composed by Carosone in a very short time after reading Nisa’s lyrics; he immediately believed the song would become a great success. The song was featured in the 1960 Melville Shavelson film It Started in Naples, in which it was sung by Sofia Loren and Clark Gable. It was also performed by Rosario Fiorello in the 1999 film The Talented Mr. Ripley and was covered by The Puppini Sisters.
The lyrics are about an Italian who imitates the contemporary American lifestyle and acts like a Yankee, drinking “whisky and soda”, dancing to Rock ‘n Roll, playing Baseball and smoking Camel cigarettes, but still depends on his parents for money. The song is generally considered a satire on the process of Americanisation that occurred in the early post-war years, when Italy was still a rural, traditional society.
Carosone himself wrote that his songs “were deeply based on the American dream, interpreting jazz and its derivatives as a symbol of an America, lively land of progress and well-being, but always Neapolitan-style, folding that symbol in a sly parody of its customs”.According to the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, “Tu vuò fa l’americano” is the symbol of Carosone’s artistic parabola, as he retired from music in 1960, just four years after releasing the song....
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