Valeria Rossi: “Sun, heart, love? I went to therapy.”

“Give me three words / sun, heart, love / give me a kiss that won’t make people talk”: who has never sung the chorus “Three words“Valeria Rossi? It wassummer 2001G8 concert in Genoa, the last before the introduction of the euro and before the al-Qaeda terrorist attacks of 9/11 changed the course of history, and the Roman singer-songwriter conquered the charts, breaking records with a single destined to become one of the biggest pop hits 2000, also thanks to that irresistible chorus, in which he lined up the most obvious rhymes of Italian song with disarming simplicity.

However, few people know that the original version of “Three Words” sounded completely different. Try humming the chorus melody with these lines: “.I am the healer / I am your pain / I am the night that must pass” That’s right:”I changed the lyrics at the request of the record companies, who asked me to lighten it up a little.“, says Valeria Rossi, more than twenty years later, whose parable ended too quickly, during one summer. “Tre parole” spent seven consecutive weeks at the top of the best-selling charts in Italy and became the second most successful single in Italy in 2001, behind only Kylie Minogue’s “Can’t get out of my head”, with more than 500 thousand copies sold: “Success at some point came as a shock. AND I went to therapy” On Wednesday, September 20, Valeria Rossi, now 54 years old and who, after fleeing success, worked for many years in the registry office of Monza (where she lives) before taking on a curious project in one of the most famous greenhouses in Lombardy. municipality, will return to publicly sing “Three Words” on the occasion of one of the three “Three Words” evenings.Suzuki Arena from 60 to 2000.

” With Amadeus in Verona, which will then be shown on television on Saturday 23 September, Wednesday 27 September and Wednesday 4 October.

“There’s only one cure / I know you know / it’s an empty room / I would believe”: what exactly did you mean?
“The empty room was a symbol of courage, the idea of ​​allowing yourself to go beyond stereotypes and patterns. This is a Taoist text.”

I’m sorry?
“I studied at the same school as Franco Battiato, who combined asceticism with matter. At the time I wrote Three Words, I was attending Gurdjieff’s school, where they teach how to develop self-awareness. This introspection was somehow reflected in the lyrics of the song. It wasn’t a catchphrase like the others, a label I reject because I find it extremely simplistic: it was a song full of symbolic overtones, with subtext yet to be deciphered. But he managed to defeat everyone.”

Is it true that no one expected such success, starting with the record companies?
“Already. Then they changed their minds so much that they even set their sights on an international launch: I went to record in Miami with producer Jennifer Lopez. The Spanish version of “Tres palabras” became a hit in the Latin market.”

And what was rejected by the “youth” of San Remo in 2001?
“This is also true. I came to the polls, but it didn’t go very well. I wasn’t demoralized. I felt like this play would still work.”

How did the turning point come?
“Thank you for the video clip. Two directors, Dario Cioni and Chico De Luigi, intuitively found the key between irony and surrealism. In fact, the video was a kind of “rehearsal” for the video: cameramen and makeup artists constantly appeared on stage, as well as a man dressed as a bee (played by actor Edoardo Gabriellini, ed.). They captured the spirit of the operation. On paper it might seem like a colossal mess. Instead, it was a success. MTV started airing it in high rotation, and from there it made its way to radio.”

What happened before Three Words?
“So many doors have been slammed in our faces. While I was studying law at the Sapienza University of Rome, I recorded auditions and called record companies, but no one seemed interested in my project. Then BMG was convinced. They also made me record two albums after the success of “Tre parole”: “Ricordate dei Fiori”, which came out the same year as the single, and “Osservi l’aria” in 2004.”

Was Three Words more of a burden or more of a pleasure?
“I have neither love nor hate for this song.

Over the years, I have learned to look at things more detachedly. Today I consider it a parenthesis in my work path. And when, years later, I am asked to sing it again, as Amadeus did on the occasion of Arena Suzuki, I try to somehow abstract myself from the song and become just a means: I am not “Three Words.”

Did the parody of “Boris” “Give me three words: eyes of the heart” somehow contribute to the revival of “Three Words”?
“Of course. And after “Boris” she was also paid tribute to Daniela Vicari in his film “Sole Cuore Amore” in 2016 and Massimiliano Bruno in “Non ci resta che il Calcio” in 2019. Today “Tre parole” has 4 s half a million plays on Spotify and 6 million views on YouTube.”

In twenty years, will we still be listening to Colors’ Italodisco and Annalisa’s Mon amour?
“It’s too early to talk about it: I don’t know which of today’s heroes will resist the harsh law of time.”

“I remember that the night I won the festival bar at the Verona arena, I was so alienated that it was as if there was another person in my place who was sitting in the corner in the meantime. I couldn’t differentiate between what I wanted and what others wanted,” you said. You didn’t ask for help?
“Yes. It was a shock. I realized that these symptoms should not be underestimated: it can happen when you experience too much emotion and are not ready to cope with it. I went to therapy. Today I am a consultant: I work in the field of education.”

It means that?
“I am one of the promoters of the VoicePlant project in Monza, a format that combines the sounds made by plants with the sounds of human interaction: I collect the sounds of plants.”

How?
“With a device that converts the electrical pulsations coming from trees into sound in which songs are written. With a group of students from the Elianto Association, we composed a real song “Scienzati ora”, released on the platforms. Twenty years later, I found stability, security, rootedness. And today I can present myself in certain contexts without being plagiarized by them.”