Kobra by Donatella Rettore (1980)

Kobra arrived in 1980 on the heels of Splendido splendente: a disco record with a reggae lilt about a dangerous, seductive force that coils around the singer and rises when she falls in love. The lyric says outright that the cobra is not a reptile, the kind of denial that settles nothing. Italian radio played it anyway, which tells you how good the tune is.

Rettore and her partner Claudio Rego wrote it as an answer. A songwriter friend from Basilicata had asked where women thought they were going, since men had the cobra; she has told the story for forty years, most recently to Piero Marrazzo on Razza Umana, and she has added that the cobra is sempre attuale, basta che si alzi. The scandal was real enough that the album's lyric sheet omitted "quando amo" while the record kept singing it, a censorship strategy best described as optimistic.

It remains her signature song and the one Italian pop hit whose phallic meaning is confirmed by its author rather than argued over by its listeners. Gelato al cioccolato, from the year before, is the opposite case: the singer insists, the lyricist denies. Between them they are the two poles of the Italian double entendre, and both are on this list, glaring at each other.