At the age of 80, Toto Cutugno passes away

At the age of 80, Toto Cutugno passed away at Milan’s San Raffaelle hospital. His cliche-ridden yet inescapably popular song L’Italiano helped millions of listeners in Europe and Russia establish concepts of Italian culture.

The singer, Salvatore Cutugno, was a fixture at the Sanremo music festival for ten years. This Italian institution served as the model for the Eurovision song contest.

With Solo Noi, he took first place in the 1980 competition, but he placed second six other times, earning him the nickname “Sanremo’s Eternal Runner-Up.”

The French singer Dalida reinterpreted Monday Tuesday… Voglio l’anima by Cutugno, which was released in 1979, became one of the biggest disco era successes in France. When the European Union was founded two years after he won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1990, he sang “Together, unite, unite, Europe” in the album Insieme.

Although no one would admit to listening to it, L’Italiano from 1983 was his biggest hit and was dubbed the “Christian Democrats of canzone” by the daily Corriere Della Sera.

The song, best known by its chorus Lasciatemi Cantare, was originally written for the more flamboyant singer Adriano Celentano, who declined it. The song left no Italian cultural cliché unturned. It introduced itself with the phrase “Let me sing, I’m Italian,” mentioning spaghetti al dente, shaving cream with mint flavor, ristretto coffee, and a “broken-down Fiat 600.”

The song hit No. 1 in the charts in Italy, France, Switzerland, and Portugal while mostly avoiding the Anglosphere. The same year, a cover song called “I Am a Finn” became popular in Finland. It traveled throughout the former Soviet Union, becoming well-liked in Russia, Ukraine, Albania, Poland, and Georgia. L’Italiano was one of the pieces he and the Red Army choir sang when he received a lifetime achievement award in San Remo in 2013.

Due to his apparent pro-Russian sympathies, Ukrainian lawmakers attempted to prevent Cutugno from playing in Kyiv in 2019. However, Cutugno denied having a close acquaintance with the Russian president, saying they had just shaken hands after one concert.

“I am a friend of the Russians, not Putin’s,” he declared. But let’s leave Putin in his current position. I send him my very worst wishes.

Prostate cancer was discovered in Cutugno in 2007, but he beat it and returned to compete in the Sanremo competition in 2010. He has mostly withdrew from public life in recent years.

Following news of the singer’s passing on Tuesday afternoon, Italian leaders and musicians paid tribute to him. Singer Eros Ramazzotti wrote, “Ciao Toto, great Maestro.” “You are missed by us.”