L'Amore Non Mi Basta
by Emma
How to study this song
“L'Amore Non Mi Basta” carries 35 Italian words, 9 adjectives and 37 verb forms — 81 study entries in all, graded B1-. The glossary is the place to begin — istruzioni, meccanismo and casa are the song’s keywords. This one leans on its verbs: 37 distinct forms against 9 adjectives, so conjugation is where the effort goes. At this level part of the list will already be familiar; the rest is what closes the gap.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| istruzioni | instructions | instrucciones | instructions, mode d’emploi | instruções | instructies, handleiding | Anleitung, Anweisungen |
Adjectives
| IT | EN | ES | FR | PT | NL | DE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| banale | trite, lame | banal | banale | banal | banaal, flauw | banal |
Verb forms
| IT | EN | ES | FR | PT | NL | DE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ci fossero | there were (subjunctive) | hubiera | il y avait | houvesse | er waren | es gäbe |
What this song teaches you
Level · B1-
- Vocabulary words
- 35
- Adjectives
- 9
- Word combos
- 20
- Expressions
- 16
- Verb forms
- 37
- Quiz questions
- 35
Background
About the song
«L’amore non mi basta» is a song by the Italian singer Emma (Emma Marrone), taken from her third studio album, «Schiena», which Universal released on 9 April 2013. It was sent to Italian radio on 11 October 2013 as the third single from the album, after «Amami» and «Dimentico tutto». The track runs three minutes and thirty-one seconds and is filed under pop rock. Words and music are by Daniele Magro; the production is by Brando and Fabrizio Ferraguzzo.
The title means "love is not enough for me", and the song is a break-up told by the person who walks away. The narrator turns up at her partner’s home with a thin pretext: she has come to collect her clothes and her books. What she really wants back is the part of her life she feels was taken from her. She admits that no manual could explain what pushed her to that door, and she pictures pain as a current in which she is both the storm and the screen that shelters from it. Then comes the request that drives the chorus: he should count slowly, turn around, look at the person who is leaving him and forget her. For too long she has been wondering how the two of them are really doing. Once they were everything to each other, the forever and the everyday at the same time. Now she decides to do what she believes is right, and she does not flatter herself while doing it: she calls herself dishonest the first time and selfish the second.
The second verse asks what became of the old vows to be there whatever happened, and what crossroads are for if each person ends up on a separate road. Hers, she says, was empty and marked by defeats, and he had arrived with the promise that she would be spared them. In the bridge she wonders whether this is the meaning of her life, and suggests that pain can perhaps be healed but can also be turned into songs. The last line is a curt full stop: it is over, and that is that.
According to the Italian and English Wikipedia pages of the single, Emma said she wanted to pay homage to «Try» by the American singer Pink, and the drums on the recording were played by Mylious Johnson, Pink’s drummer. For a learner of Italian the lyric is a compact grammar lesson: an imperfect subjunctive in the hypothetical opening, a past conditional, the simple future, imperatives with a pronoun attached to the end of the verb, and past participles that agree with a feminine speaker.