David Bowie and The Computers’ “Lonely Boy Lonely Girl”.
Among the most curious proposals that will be on the bill during the cover evenings of the next Sanremo Festival is the rediscovery by Francesco Renga, who will sing it with Giusy Ferreri, of the Italian-language cover (signed by Mogol) of David Bowie’s “Space oddity”.
The ’60s were magical years: it could happen that two boys from Abruzzo, noticed as singers in a nightclub in Genoa, within a short time found themselves in the studio with Lucio Battisti, who christened them the “Italian Simon & Garfunkel”, and with Mogol. And that the Milanese author entrusted them with an Italian version of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity”, projecting them towards fame. Mario and Gabriele Balducci called themselves Computers at the time.
It is Mario who tells their story, rewinding the tape of time.
When was the duo born?
“My older brother Gabriele and I were born in Abruzzo. When we were little our family moved to Genoa. We always had a passion for singing and the idea of forming a duo. We hung out with the entrepreneur Carlo Trapani, who at the time got us some collaborations with the Zecchino D’Oro. We later held our first performances in a nightclub in Piazza De Ferrari, in the center of Genoa. I kept my age hidden because I wasn’t yet of age. One evening, two distinguished gentlemen who were sipping a cocktail started eyeing us while we sang.”
Who were they?
“Sandro Colombini and Bob Lumbroso. They told us about this newborn label, Numero Uno. There were Lucio Battisti, Eugenio Bennato and others. It was towards the end of the sixties. They asked us if we were interested in working with them. We didn’t think twice: the next day we were in Milan catapulted into a real world and market of music.”
Was “Lonely Boy, Lonely Girl” your debut single?
“Yes. We started working with the label as backing singers. Sometimes we also wrote songs for others. It was Mogol who asked us if we were interested in performing a song for which he had written lyrics in Italian. It was “Ragazzo solo,ragazza sola”: it was a success. In 1971 we also released “Maena”, that too was a lucky song”.
Did you know the song in David Bowie’s original version? Did Mogol explain to you why he distorted the text?
“We didn’t know it, we listened to it some time later. But when Mogol and Colombini came to us and introduced it to us, we were amazed: it was perfect for a duo. Mogol told us that the lyrics were designed for the Italian market: he put an exaltation of feelings at the centre. Everyone trusted his instincts. Bowie’s song, on the other hand, was for ‘astronauts’, more complicated for the Italy of that period”.
Do you remember the registration?
“Of course, we did it in a studio in via Borsieri, in Milan. Numero Uno was not just a label, but a large family. Lucio Battisti, who gave advice and played the guitar, and Mogol often stopped by those studios. Everyone made their skills available. The day it was our turn, in the studio there were musicians like Franz Di Cioccio, Gianni Dall’Aglio and Franco Mussida at our disposal: they were the session musicians of that period. It was extraordinary to look at everything with the eyes of now.”
Did you talk to Battisti?
“It happened in several situations. Once, with a smile, he told us: ‘here they are, the Italian Simon & Garfunkel’. I repeat: it was a special world, they were special years. No arrogance, but just a great desire to work and make beautiful music.”
How did the name Computers come about?
“It was Gianni Boncompagni who suggested it to us. He said it would work on the radio. And he was right. We had the right song and the right name, but something was still missing.”
The look?
“Well done. Mara Maionchi was our artistic director. She suggested how to dress and how to move in certain environments. She had a fundamental role, and within the label and outside she was immediately considered a great professional. When the piece came out we were over the moon: I remember that once the Beatles came on the radio and then immediately after us, it was incredible.”
What did you think when Bowie’s Italian version came out in 1970?
“He made me smile, he sang in Italian in a strange way. We never met him, but he gave me a good feeling. It seemed like a friendly voice.”
When Bertolucci put Bowie’s version and not yours in his 2012 film “You and Me”, were you upset?
“A little yes, but he did it because of the weight of the name. A piece of Bowie remains a piece of Bowie.”
Why did you leave Numero Uno shortly after that success?
“There were disagreements between Colombini and Mogol. Colombini abandoned the boat. We came from a family of strong values: ‘you don’t abandon those who believe in you’ was one of our firm points. We decided to follow Colombini: he told us not to do it and to stay in Number One with Mogol. With hindsight, we were left out of the game.”
In 1974 you moved to Ariston.
“Yes, but my brother didn’t want to sing anymore. I was left alone, and fortunately I found my own personal path. I started writing for Julio Igliesias, Iva Zanicchi, Little Tony, i Ricchi e Poveri, Christian. My career as an author lasted until 1990”.
There was only her writing the lyrics. Is this why they were signed “Computer” and no longer “Computers” in the plural?
“It’s the first time someone has pointed this out to me. In fact it could be like that. At the time I didn’t notice it.”
Then what did he do? And his brother?
“After 1990 I joined a sports club, because the discography was changing. The entire industry changed. Now I am one of the owners of a tennis club in Milan. After music, my brother began working in the theatre, taking care of the sound part of many shows. He also had the opportunity to collaborate with great personalities such as Giorgio Strehler”.
The story of (or rather, of) the Italian versions of “Space Oddity” does not end here. Thanks to our colleague Vito Vita, who allowed us to use it, we report below two fragments of his interviews with Claudio Fabi, who oversaw the recording of the song in Italian sung by David Bowie, and Mino di Martino dei Giganti, who also recorded and published their own cover (with different lyrics from that of “Ragazzo solo, Ragazzo Sola”), entitled “Run man, run”.
From Vito Vita’s interview with Claudio Fabi
With José Feliciano I worked on the Italian version of “Light my fire”, the Doors cover, for which some lyrics were written in Italian which weren’t very good, but in the end nothing came of it.
In this role I also worked, among others, on David Bowie, whose “Space Oddity” I really liked and whom I followed for the creation of the Italian version, “Ragazzo solo, Ragazzo Sola”, in collaboration with Giulio Rapetti, Mogol: I went to England to follow the recording of the album with this rather banal text that transformed Bowie’s visionary and futuristic words into a little love song. I suffered this thing, because Mogol’s words were sent to me at the last minute, I left for London almost without lyrics, Giulio was working on it in Milan and I was leaving from Rome. When it arrived I read it together with David and we looked at each other: we immediately understood that Mogol’s lyrics had nothing to do with it, it was exactly the opposite of Bowie’s cultural world, but he put on a good face by telling me ‘Don’t worry, this is what they gave us and this is what we’re going to do’, because I was more disappointed than him: even if he was still a boy at the beginning, I thought he was – but not just me, even in Rome Lilli Greco and Ettore Zeppegno were among me opinion – an interesting and creative artist, thanks practically only to this first single; we realized that compared to the material arriving from abroad at that time it had something special.
In the same period the Giganti recorded it with another text by Mino Di Martino, “Run, man, run”, which was certainly closer to the original than Mogol’s.
Yes, that’s true; but in general it was a problem with almost all the covers of the period, the Italian lyrics hardly gave an idea of the original one, we had these lyricists who indulged themselves but almost never went off the rails of the usual love song. However, we made this recording with terrible phonetics because he, being very English, was unable to give a Mediterranean pronunciation…
From Vito Vita’s interview with Mino di Martino dei Giganti
In 1970 you released a 45 rpm single with three songs, one of which, “Corri Uomo Corri”, was a cover of David Bowie’s “Space oddity”. The lyrics, however, are different from those of “Boy alone, girl alone”, recorded by Bowie himself and the Computers, however they are still signed by Mogol: can you tell us how it went?
Let’s start by saying that the text is mine and not Mogol’s; and indeed, when after some time we were playing in Switzerland, David Bowie’s wife from the time arrived and asked who had written the lyrics to “Run, man, run”; and then, when we all went out to dinner together in the evening, she said to me “My husband really liked your text, what Mogol had done was disgusting”. If I had had more ambitions maybe I would have stayed in touch, but in the end we said goodbye like this: “If you come to London, come and visit us”. However, the issue at the time was like this: whoever first wrote the Italian version signed it, and if someone later made a different version, with other words I mean, at SIAE level the signature of the first author remained; and in our case, Mogol obviously had all the contacts with the English publishing house, he had written his text first, moreover I wasn’t even a member of the SIAE yet, so only his signature remained. I have to say that Mogol is not at fault, that was the rule and I didn’t even know it, and then we’re talking about a song that sold just over thirty thousand copies, which today is a lot but back then it was nothing, and then we made maybe two or three television appearances with this song and that’s it.
Do Tempera and the others play here too?
Yes, but there’s also Checco on the organ, if you listen to the ending of “Corri Uomo Corri” it’s him who plays that beautiful part at the end, a scary solo, which shows that as a musician he had nothing to envy of anyone. What in my opinion is not so successful in the song is the part sung at the beginning by Papes, it’s not that he didn’t sing well but in that case he wasn’t very on the song.
The fact is that I worked on the composition, and then in the arrangement phase we were all involved, but in these last songs, with the fact of having involved other musicians, there was less synergy with the group.
Vito Vita, journalist and song historian, whom we thank for giving us these contributions, is the author of “Musica solid”.
