The Key to Making a #1 Hit

🎶 The year was 1974, and ”Prisencolinensinainciusol”, a song by Italian musician and director Adrian Celentano with all English lyrics, was sitting atop the charts in Italy. In fact, it was so popular that the song was also #1 in France, Germany, and Belgium.

Shoot – we made a mistake… did we say it was in English? Well, that’s not actually correct.

The song was 100% gibberish, hogwash, nonsense – whatever you want to call it – but written to mimic the way English sounds to non-English speakers. You may have even encountered it before; the song is quite popular. It’s been featured in a Captain Morgan commercial, remixed by Benny Benassi (it actually slaps), and meme’d from here until kingdom come.

If you haven’t heard it before, give the song a listen. (And then hurry back – the story doesn’t end there.)

🤔 💬 The rest of the story… It’s been said that Celentano wanted to prove Italians would like any American song. And that could check out. Not much work went into writing the lyrics – they’re so nonsensical that my guy just went into the booth and dropped a freestyle over a looped beat.

But according to Celentano himself, the inspiration came from a different place.

• “[B]ecause I like American slang — which, for a singer, is much easier to sing than Italian — I thought that I would write a song which would only have as its theme the inability to communicate," he told podcast host Guy Raz through an interpreter.
• "And to do this, I had to write a song where the lyrics didn't mean anything… I brought to light the fact that people don't communicate."

So the next time you make up lyrics singing along to a song you like (don’t lie, we’ve all been there), just imagine you’re breaking down communication barriers like Adrian Celentano.

Sometimes even nonsense can make a great point.