Laura non c'è
Nek
How to study this song
“Laura non c'è” carries 12 Italian words, 7 adjectives and 40 verb forms — 59 study entries in all, graded A2+. Work through the glossary first: cosa and fiato are the words you will lean on most. This one leans on its verbs: 40 distinct forms against 7 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| cosa | thing | cosa | chose | coisa | ding | Sache |
| fiato | breath | aliento | souffle | fôlego | adem | Atem |
This card holds 10 more words. You meet them when you play the song.
Adjectives
| IT | EN | ES | FR |
|---|
What this song teaches you
Level · A2+
- Vocabulary words
- 12
- Adjectives
- 7
- Word combos
- 8
- Expressions
- 12
- Verb forms
- 40
- Quiz questions
- 35
Background
About the song
«Laura non c'è» ("Laura is not here") is the song that turned Nek, a young singer-songwriter from Emilia, into an international star. Nek, whose real name is Filippo Neviani, presented it at the Sanremo Festival in February 1997, in the main competition for established artists, the «Campioni» section. The song is credited to Nek himself, the guitarist and producer Massimo Varini and the lyricist Antonello De Sanctis. It did not win. The festival, held at the Teatro Ariston from 18 to 22 February and hosted by Mike Bongiorno with Piero Chiambretti and Valeria Marini, was won by the almost unknown duo Jalisse with «Fiumi di parole», while Nek finished seventh with 13,995 votes, according to the Italian Wikipedia. Yet it was his song, not the winner, that everybody in Italy was singing that spring and summer.
The song tells a story that many listeners recognised from their own lives. The narrator is with a new woman, but his mind is still with Laura, the girl who has left him. The new partner asks him why he is so distant, and he admits that he still loves Laura although she no longer gives him anything, that he misses her so much he can hardly breathe, and that the pain has never gone away. He knows that searching for Laura in somebody else is a foolish thing to do, he feels terrible about it, and he does not want to spend the evening with one woman while thinking of another.
In the chorus he tells the new partner that they can make love if she wants, but that it will not feel the same: he cannot stand being alone, so he asks her to stay, and the only strange thing is to find her in the place where Laura used to be. In the second verse jealousy arrives. He wonders where Laura is now, imagines another man beside her and pictures her in someone else's arms, and he confesses that he cannot cope. The bridge is the most honest moment of the song: he says he does not want the new woman to be only a remedy for an emergency, and that between affection and love there is nothing but Laura and his own conscience. At the end he gives up. Laura's image still stands between the two of them, and he cannot go on pretending.
Who is Laura? Fans have asked that question for almost thirty years. In an interview with the Swiss news site blue News, Nek said that the person really existed but was not called Laura: he chose the name because it sounded more musical and because it protected her privacy. Italian magazines also report that, speaking on Radio Deejay, he described the song as a piece of his life as a young man rather than a portrait of one precise person.