Una canzone d'amore
by 883
How to study this song
Learning “Una canzone d'amore” means 50 entries at A2- — 10 Italian words, 4 adjectives and 36 verb forms, every one taken from what the song actually says. Start with the glossary: canzone and amore come up again and again, so they are the ones to know first. This one leans on its verbs: 36 distinct forms against 4 adjectives, so conjugation is where the effort goes. At this level the goal is recognition: hear a word, place it, keep going.
The words of this song, in several languages
Every word below is taken from this song and translated by us. Nothing here is the lyric itself — these are the individual words you need in order to follow it.
Vocabulary
| IT | EN | ES | FR | PT | NL | DE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| canzone | song | canción | chanson | canção | lied | Lied |
Adjectives
| IT | EN | ES | FR | PT | NL | DE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| facile | easy | fácil | facile | fácil | makkelijk | leicht |
This card holds 3 more adjectives. You meet them when you play the song.
Verb forms
| IT | EN | ES | FR | PT | NL | DE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| avessi | (if) I had | (si) tuviera | (si) j'avais | (se) eu tivesse | (als) ik had | (wenn) ich hätte |
What this song teaches you
Level · A2-
- Vocabulary words
- 10
- Adjectives
- 4
- Word combos
- 6
- Expressions
- 8
- Verb forms
- 36
- Quiz questions
- 35
Background
About the song
«Una canzone d’amore» was released on 6 July 1995 as the third single from «La donna il sogno & il grande incubo», the third studio album by 883, which had come out on 16 June on Fri Records. It is the longest track on the record, at five minutes and thirty-two seconds, and it closes a run of singles that had already given the band «Senza averti qui», their Sanremo entry that year, and «Tieni il tempo», the summer hit that won the Festivalbar.
The album marks a turning point in the story of 883. The duo from Pavia — Max Pezzali and Mauro Repetto, discovered by the producer and radio man Claudio Cecchetto — had broken through in 1992 with «Hanno ucciso l’Uomo Ragno». By 1995 Repetto had decided to step away, so this was the first 883 album without him in the band, even though he still contributed as a writer. Pezzali, now effectively the face and voice of the project, surrounded himself with a real group of musicians: Jacopo Corso and Roberto Priori on guitars, Sandro Verde on piano and keyboards, and Leandro Misuriello on bass. For the first time 883 could play live rather than rely on backing tracks.
The song itself was written by Pezzali with Cecchetto, and produced by Pier Paolo Peroni and Marco Guarnerio together with Cecchetto. Pezzali later told Radio Deejay that it had first been offered to Massimo Ranieri, the great voice of classic Italian song, before the band decided to keep it. It is a ballad built on a single idea: a man who feels he lacks the words to say what he feels, and who imagines everything he would do if only he could. That hypothetical frame runs from the first line to the last, which is why the song works so well as a lesson in the Italian subjunctive and conditional.
The arrangement is slower and more spacious than the band’s dance-pop singles, with piano and guitars carrying the melody and a long, rising chorus. It became one of the most loved songs in the 883 catalogue, the kind of track that crowds still sing from start to finish at Max Pezzali’s concerts three decades later.
Did you know?
The video was directed by Stefano Salvati. It shows Pezzali on his wedding day, moving through the ceremony and the celebration, until the ending reveals that it was all a daydream: he is actually standing on a street corner, waiting for a girl who is forty minutes late. When she finally arrives, a closing caption asks whether they lived happily ever after — with a question mark. The actor Stefano Accorsi, then at the start of his career, appears in the clip.