"" () is a song performed by Italian singer

Mina Mina may refer to: Places Iran * Minaq, East Azerbaijan * Mina, Fars * Mineh, Lorestan Province * Mina, Razavi Khorasan * Mehneh, Razavi Khorasan Province United States * Mina, California * Mina, Nevada * Mina, New York * Mina, Ohio * Mina ...

, released in May 1966. The music was composed, orchestrated and conducted by

Ennio Morricone Ennio Morricone (; 10 November 19286 July 2020) was an Italian composer, orchestrator, conductor, and trumpeter who wrote music in a wide range of styles. With more than 400 scores for cinema and television, as well as more than 100 classic ...

to Italian lyrics by Ghigo De Chiara and

Maurizio Costanzo Maurizio Costanzo (born 28 August 1938) is an Italian television host, journalist, screenwriter and film director. Biography Costanzo began his career as a journalist, first as a contributing writer to ''Paese Sera'' and then as managing edito ...

. The song was written for an episode of the Sunday morning TV programme "" ("Air conditioning"). It was a standout track of Mina's '' Studio Uno 66'', the fifth-biggest-selling album of the year 1966 in Italy, which sold over a million copies worldwide. Morricone's sophisticated arrangement of "" combined melodic trumpet lines,

Hal Blaine Hal Blaine (born Harold Simon Belsky; February 5, 1929 – March 11, 2019) was an American drummer and session musician, thought to be among the most recorded studio drummers in the music industry, claiming over 35,000 sessions and 6,000 singles ...

-style drumming, a string set, a '60s

Europop Europop (also spelled Euro pop) is a style of pop music that originated in Europe during the mid-to-late 1960s and developed to today's form throughout the late 1970s. Europop topped the charts throughout the 1980s and 1990s, with revivals and ...

female

choir A choir ( ; also known as a chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which s ...

, and intensive subsonic-sounding trombones. The main theme of the song thrills around just three notes, taken from the siren of a police car in

Marseilles Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Fra ...

. The Italian hit parade #7 song featured eight transitions of

tonality Tonality is the arrangement of pitches and/or chords of a musical work in a hierarchy of perceived relations, stabilities, attractions and directionality. In this hierarchy, the single pitch or triadic chord with the greatest stability is cal ...

building tension throughout the chorus. In late 1966, Mina recorded an English version of the song for

United Artists United Artists Corporation (UA), currently doing business as United Artists Digital Studios, is an American digital production company. Founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, the stu ...

' release in English-speaking countries. In the reader's poll conducted by the newspaper to celebrate Mina's 70th anniversary in 2010, 30,000 voters picked the track as the best song ever recorded by Mina.

Charts

Certifications and sales

Cover versions

During the following decades, the song was covered by several performers in Italy and abroad, most notably by

Françoise Hardy Françoise Madeleine Hardy (; born 17 January 1944) is a French former singer and songwriter. Mainly known for singing melancholic sentimental ballads, Hardy has been an important figure in French pop music since her debut, spanning a career of ...

(in French "" and in English "I Will Change My Life"),

Iva Zanicchi Iva or IVA may refer to: Organizations * Independent Voters Association, a North Dakota U.S. political organization * Informationsvidenskabelige Akademi, a Danish university * Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences, (Swedish: ''Kungliga In ...

(1966),

Orietta Berti Orietta Berti (born Orietta Galimberti on 1 June 1943) is an Italian pop-folk singer and television personality. Biography Born in Cavriago, Berti began her career in 1962 and had her first success in 1965 with the song "Tu sei quello" (You ...

(2003),

Delta V Delta-''v'' (more known as "change in velocity"), symbolized as ∆''v'' and pronounced ''delta-vee'', as used in spacecraft flight dynamics, is a measure of the impulse per unit of spacecraft mass that is needed to perform a maneuver such as ...

(2005),

Claudio Baglioni Claudio Baglioni (; born 16 May 1951) is an Italian pop singer-songwriter and musician. His career has been going on for over 50 years. Some songs from the 70s are part of Italian culture such as ''E tu come stai?''. In the 80s he released the ...

Vanessa and the O's Vanessa and the O's is a musical group formed in 2003/2004. It was created in New York City when Parisian Vanessa Contenay-Quinones (known for Allez Pop!) got together with Swedish musical collaborators Andreas Mattsson (Popsicle) and Niclas Fris ...

(2007),

Neil Hannon Edward Neil Anthony Hannon (born 7 November 1970) is a Northern Irish singer and songwriter. He is the creator and front man of the chamber pop group The Divine Comedy, and is the band's sole constant member. Hannon wrote the theme tunes for t ...

(2008), (2008) and

Etta Scollo Etta Scollo (born 27 May 1958) is an Italian singer and songwriter. Her music combines traditional Sicilian music, pop and jazz. Biography Born in Catania, Italy, she moved to Turin to study Architecture. She abandoned her studies to devote h ...

(2011). In February 2015, the Italian singer

Nek Filippo Neviani (born 6 January 1972), known by his stage name Nek, is an Italian singer-songwriter and musician. Nek is popular in Italy and throughout the Spanish-speaking world, and has performed and released most of his albums in both Italian ...

won with his cover of "" the award for "Best Cover" during the

Sanremo Music Festival 2015 The Sanremo Music Festival 2015 (''65° Festival della Canzone Italiana di Sanremo 2015'') was the 65th annual Sanremo Music Festival, a television song contest held at the Teatro Ariston in Sanremo, Liguria, between 10 and 14 February 2015 and b ...

. Nek's version of the song sold over 50,000 copies in Italy. On November of the same year,

Franco Battiato Francesco "Franco" Battiato (; 23 March 1945 – 18 May 2021) was an Italian musician, singer, composer, filmmaker and, under the pseudonym Süphan Barzani, also a painter. Battiato's songs contain esoteric, philosophical and religious themes, a ...

also inserted his own cover of the song in the album ''Anthology''.

References

External links

Hitparade Italia – Se telefonando

Chi Mai.com, Se telefonando – song credits
* {{Authority control 1966 songs 1966 singles Ennio Morricone songs Mina (Italian singer) songs Ri-Fi singles