Italian Songs About Dicks: Cobras, Ice Cream and a Tarantella
Italy's entries hold the two poles of the double entendre. Donatella Rettore has said for forty years that her "cobra" is exactly what it sounds like; Pupo says Gelato al cioccolato is about a young man its lyricist met in Tunisia, and the lyricist says it is about a pudding. Both were among the best-known Italian pop of their years, which tells you what Italy was humming. The rest come from the margins, from an eighteenth-century "rooster" to a "banana" in the dialect of Bari.
- 1
Kobra
Donatella Rettore · 1980 · 3:27YouTubeRettore wrote it after a man said women can't compete because men have the "cobra", which she says is always current, provided it rises.
- 2
Gelato al cioccolato
Pupo · 1979 · 3:18YouTubeThe singer says it is about oral sex with a man the lyricist met in Tunisia; the lyricist says it is about a pudding.
- 3
John Holmes (una vita per il cinema)
Elio e le Storie Tese · 1989 · 4:09YouTubeItaly's defining comedy band wrote a biography of the most famous penis in film history and made it all up, except the measurements.
- 4
Ti si mangiate la banana
Leone Di Lernia · 1994 · 4:27YouTubeA Barese dialect parody of a Eurodance hit in which somebody has eaten the "banana", and every Italian over thirty can tell you who.
- 5
Cicerenella
Traditional (Naples) · 18th century · 3:30YouTubeAn eighteenth-century tarantella about a girl and the "rooster" she rides all night, sung across southern Italy by people who know what a rooster is.
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