Alibi
by Tananai
The legal vocabulary — alibi, indagini, arrestato — is a frame, and underneath it sits the most demanding structure on any B1 card: l'avessimo saputo paired with mi arresterebbero. That is how Italian describes a past that did not happen and the consequence it would have had, and it needs two tenses cooperating, a pluperfect subjunctive and a conditional. Most courses postpone the pair for a year. Alongside it, three imperfects offer the gentler past: cantavi, odiavo, perdonavi. The nouns are a night out — birra, cena, amici. B1 is generous for the grammar on display and fair for the words.
How to study this song
The card for “Alibi” is built from 82 study entries at B1: 32 Italian words, 7 adjectives and 43 verb forms. Start with the glossary: birra, notti and cena come up again and again, so they are the ones to know first. This one leans on its verbs: 43 distinct forms against 7 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| birra | beer | cerveza | bière | cerveja |
What this song teaches you
Level · B1
- Vocabulary words
- 32
- Adjectives
- 7
- Word combos
- 9
- Expressions
- 10
- Verb forms
- 44
- Quiz questions
- 35
Background
About the song
“Alibi” is a 2025 Italian pop single by Tananai, a Milanese singer-songwriter who broke through via the Sanremo Music Festival. His style ranges from playful electropop to heartfelt ballads.
Tananai — Alberto Cotta Ramusino, born in Milan in 1995 — moves between electropop and plain ballads, and this one sits nearer the second.
The title is a genuine cognate: alibi passes into Italian, English and Spanish alike from the Latin for “elsewhere”, and means the same in all three, a reminder that Italian hands a learner several hundred free words before any studying starts.
The card is graded B1, with clear diction and a chorus that repeats enough to be caught on a second listen. Released on 21 March 2025, it was the first single from the reissue of his third album “CalmoCobra”.
Tananai wrote it with Enrico Wolfgang Leonardo Cavion and Paolo Antonacci and produced it himself, and it went into the soundtrack of Luca Lucini’s film “L’amore, in teoria”, released that April.
Did you know?
Tananai went from a last-place Sanremo debut to becoming one of the most popular young artists in Italy, a turnaround often cited in the Italian press.
Charts & streaming
Tananai broke through at the 2022 Sanremo Festival, finishing last and turning the joke into a career, then returned in 2023 with "Tango", which came second and was certified multi-platinum in Italy. He has been a steady presence on the Italian singles chart since.