You Really Can Write Songs About Whatever

23 Apr, 2026

Last Sunday I went to a concert with my brother and his wife, starring a celebrity that everyone in Italy born in the 90s knows: Max Pezzali of 883 fame. My brother was a huge fan, and me being the little sister I was spoon fed all his major successes until the age of 18 (and at that point, both me and my brother stopped following recent releases).

883 songs are an incredibly telling product of their time, and while Max and Mauro Repetto (the other member of 883) were in their mid-twenties when they released their first album, the lyrics are. Well. What kind of songs would your sixteen years old self have written?

Don't nag me, I don't get what you want
You did know I wasn't like you all
I like stouts and James Dean motorcycles,
not those bullshit they say in the movies

This is an excerpt of "Non me la menare", literally "Don't nag me", and stars an incredibly immature boyfriend complaining about his girlfriend that's evidently pretty awful at picking her own partner. He's kind of right girl, you did know he wasn't "like you all".

You wish I was always in a suit and tie
I always wear the same t-shirt
the black one with the holes under the armpits
the more they get old the more they seem cool
You always say I need to get tan
Even if you know that
I HATE THE BEACH!
You tell me I'm not bad but I should change a bit,
Why don't you understand?!

I wouldn't date someone like this in a million years but he is right. A good chunk of older 883 discography oozes "young, almost childish rebel who wants to do their own thing". Loser punk who really believes in themselves and their friends. As the albums go on, this kind of childish attitude gets toned down¹, but "La dura legge del gol" ("The Hard Law of the Goal") still uses soccer as a way to convey a metaphor about the hardships of life:

How many people in these years have let us down
How many, smiling, have discarded us after use
Standing up from the chair of the closed bar,
Slowly, Cisco says
"You don't understand shit, it's a bit like in soccer"
It's the hard law of the goal
You might play a great game, but
If you have no defense, the others will score and win
They keep themselves closed, but at the first chance
They come up and throw it inside, throw it inside

Using soccer as a metaphor is such a dude thing to do. You have to consider I was a little girl when I listened to these songs, and dreamed of becoming just like these guys. Yeah. So cool. To be completely honest, this is the last chorus of the same song:

It's the hard law of the goal
The others might score, but
What a show when we're the ones playing, we never give up
They keep themselves closed, but who cares who wins?
In the end, we're the Dream Team, we're the Dream Team

It's a damn good song about keeping true to yourself and your friends even when the world punches you down. Who cares about the soccer metaphor! I love "La dura legge del gol".

I always talk about honesty, but with honesty comes shame and, well "cringe". A lot of 883 songs are cringe, especially the ones I like the most, but I think that's precisely why I like them (other than the overwhelming nostalgia). This is an excerpt from my favourite song when I was around 7 years old:

The thong gets higher just enough on the side
Passing the low waist of the jeans to the hip
The white curve underlines, suits the forms
and matches your dark skin
I wonder if you're the same in the winter
Or if you stop (stop, stop) and bloom again in May
It's not the hot, you're the one raising the temperature
It's not the flowers, you're the one perfuming the atmosphere
Get up, turn around, move, sit down again
It's not the hot, you're the one that's truly beautiful

"Bella Vera" is a banger but holy shit if it's not insanely objectifying. Of course I sang my heart out at that concert are you kidding me. The 90's were wild. Also, those PVs, man...

Nowadays, free from the allure of Bella Vera and what it did to my tiny lesbian brain probably, I'm incredibly fond of "Un giorno così" ("A Day Like This"):

My motorcycle slides slowly way into town
The sun will soon set down
I stop at the red light,
Giving me a little more time
Before the motorcycle gets back to the garage
The kid on that car looks back and sees me
He raises his arm and waves, how nice is that?
It makes me feel like
You only need a day like this
To erase 120 shitty days, and
You only need a day like this
To kick out all the hassles that
every day seem even more,
every day seem even scarier,
every day but not now, now, now
that it's a day like this

You really don't need big words to say it. For some reason, I've convinced myself for a very long time that you need to write carefully crafted lyrics to convey the right feeling, and some things don't deserve to be sung about unless it's a joke song... and then I remember "S'Inkazza" ("She Gets Pissed", roughly):

When you take too many showers (She gets pissed, she gets pissed)
When you instead take none (She gets pissed, she gets pissed)
When you leave your underwear around (She gets pissed, she gets pissed)
When you don't want boiled meat (She gets pissed, she gets pissed)
This house is not an hotel, even dad says so
You don't care, you have no respect and neither dignity

Dude was 25 and wrote a song about how annoying his mom got sometimes, what the hell. I hope she had a good laugh about it.²

#music