Planning a road trip to Italy? Here is a playlist of old and new Italian songs about travelling or with the right mood for your trip. (See below.)
The first song that comes to everyone’s mind in Italy when talking about travel is Sì, viaggiare by Lucio Battisti – one of the most popular tunes of one of Italy’s finest songwriter. 1977, a bit of Motown sound and a killer metaphor of life as a road trip.
Pino Daniele (1981) and Nu Genea (2022), both from Napoli, both mixing Neapolitan with other languages (so don’t panic if you feel like you can’t understand anything of what they’re singing – it’s not your fault :)) and playing some irresistible disco music.
The Giornalisti (2018) and Colapesce/Dimartino (2021), with two of the biggest hits of the last years, a perfect soundtrack when you are driving along the sunny Italian sea fronts.
Estate was written by Bruno Martino in 1960 and it became a jazz standard covered by musicians like Joao Gilberto and Chet Baker. Here you’ll find a more radio-friendly version by Giorgio Poi (2020) recorded for the Netflix series Summertime.
Buon viaggio is the Italian for “have a nice trip”, and it happens to be the title of one of Cesare Cremonini’s songs (2015). Do I really need to explain why it is on this playlist?
In 2005 the rock band Negrita went on a road trip to South America. There they wrote one of their biggest hits Rotolando verso Sud. The perfect soundtrack if you are driving through Puglia or Sicily.
La Rappresentante di Lista is a band that had a massive success in the last two years. Their Ciao ciao (2022) is a massive hit, thanks to the up-tempo rhythm and its catchy chorus: “Con le mani, Ciao ciao. Con i piedi, Ciao ciao. E con la testa, con il petto, con il cuore Ciao ciao. E con le gambe, con il culo, coi miei occhi: ciao!” (“With my hands, bye bye. With my feet, bye bye. With my head, my chest, my heart, bye bye. With my legs, my ass, my eyes, bye!”).
Finally, a melancholic, mellow tune by Max Gazzè and Niccolò Fabi. Vento d’estate was released in 1998 and it is a quite unusual summer song. The chorus goes like this: “Vento d’estate, Io vado al mare, voi che fate? Non mi aspettate…Forse mi perdo.” (“Summer wind, I’m headed to the sea, what are your plans? Do not bother waiting for me, I might get lost”).
Blog by Italian teacher Luca.
