Have you ever listened to a K-Pop song? You know it’s Korean. It sounds Korean. But how do you know for sure? You don’t speak Korean. Are you absolutely certain that you are listening to Korean?
I imagine that is the same feeling many Italians had in the 1970s when popular Italian singer Adriano Celentano released Prisencolinensinainciusol, a song written to sound like American English. The lyrics are definitely not English. In fact, only two sounds sung in the entire song are recognisably English: “all” and “right”. Beyond that, the lyrics are all improvised gibberish.
If you Google search “Italian song that sounds like English” or “Italian song in fake English”, Google will provide you with information on Celentano’s single immediately. This silly-sounding song, written by Adriano Celentano and performed alongside his wife, Claudia Mori, was originally released on November 3rd, 1972, and it quickly became a hit. It topped the weekly charts in a number of countries, including Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France. It even finished at number 14 in Italy’s yearly charts in 1974. It rose to fame and continued its popularity throughout the ‘70s. Adriano Celentano may have already been famous in his own right before releasing Prisencolinensinainciusol, but this song made him memorable internationally.
Celentano’s nonsensical single resurfaced in the 2000s with the rise of YouTube. Videos of Celentano performing Prisencolinensinainciusol have regained popularity once again in the form of memes and quick internet laughs. It has even made its way onto American television as a background soundtrack on shows such as FX’s Fargo and Trust.
Even more recently, in 2021, Prisencolinensinainciusol was performed live once more as a cover by Madame, an up-and-coming Italian singer, at the Sanremo Music Festival. In the same year, the song returned to American TVs in commercials for Captain Morgan rum.
Today, to English speakers around the world, this song is hilarious! It’s a silly little novelty. However, that was not Celentano’s intention when creating the song. His goal was instead to express the inability to communicate properly. This song is a representation of what it feels like to try to communicate with a foreign language speaker, and not understand anything they are saying. Celentano himself even later told an interviewer that he sang the song with “an angry tone” in order to bring importance to the song’s theme: “people don’t communicate”. It can be frustrating to be misunderstood and to misunderstand other people. This humorously irritated song expresses those frustrations perfectly.
If you haven’t already heard this “English” Italian song, check out this YouTube video and enjoy. Hear for yourself the faked American English tones of gibberish.
And below you can find the lyrics. They may be absolute nonsense but that doesn’t mean you can’t try and sing along! (Source: Musixmatch)
Prisencolinensinainciusol
In de col men seivuan
Prisencolinensinainciusol ol rait
Uis de seim cius nau op de seim
Ol uait men in de colobos dai
Trrr ciak is e maind beghin de col
Bebi stei ye push yo oh
Uis de seim cius nau op de seim
Ol uoit men in de colobos dai
Not s de seim laikiu de promisdin
Iu nau in trabol lovgiai ciu gen
In do camo not cius no bai for lov so
Op op giast cam lau ue cam lov ai
Oping tu stei laik cius go mo men
Iu bicos tue men cold dobrei goris
Oh sandei
Ai ai smai sesler
Eni els so co uil piso ai
In de col men seivuan
Prisencolinensinainciusol ol rait
Ai ai smai senflecs
Eni go for doing peso ai
Prisencolinensinainciusol ol rait
Uel ai sint no ai giv de sint
Laik de cius nobodi oh gud taim lev feis go
Uis de seim et seim cius go no ben
Let de cius end kai for not de gai giast stei
Ai ai smai senflecs
Eni go for doing peso ai
In de col mein seivuan
Prisencolinensinainciusol ol rait
Lu nei si not sicidor
Ah es la bebi la dai big iour
Ai aismai senflecs
Eni go for doing peso ai
In de col mein seivuan
Prisencolinensinainciusol ol rait
Lu nei si not sicodor
Ah es la bebi la dai big iour
Written by our American contributor in Florence, Lyssa Yapp.
Heather Broster is a graduate with honours in linguistics from the University of Western Ontario. She is an aspiring polyglot, proficient in English and Italian, as well as Japanese, Welsh, and French to varying degrees of fluency. Originally from Toronto, Heather has resided in various countries, notably Italy for a period of six years. Her primary focus lies in the fields of language acquisition, education, and bilingual instruction.
