I've been so fascinated with this song, esp being 100% Italian. I heard my dad sing this so many times, in both Italian and English. But only recently I started to wonder about the Italian lyric: "What is this guy talking about? He says he painted his face and hands blue!! What is that all about?"

As I researched the origin of the song, I uncovered a great story of songwriting. In 1958, two Italian songwriters (Domenico Modugno and Franco Migliacci) were planning to collaborate and write some music. While Migliacci was waiting for Modugno to arrive at his seaside cottage, Migliacci got a bit woozy from wine and lay down on a sofa. Above on the wall were a couple of copy of Marc Chagall paintings. In "Le coq rouge" was a yellow man suspended in mid-air, while in "Le peintre et la modèle", half the painter's face was colored blue. So he began penning a song about a man who dreams of painting himself blue, and being able to fly.

It led to a song that won the San Remo song festival in 1958, eventually 2 Grammys and over 22 copies in languages around the world. In addition, Modugno's performance of the song at the festival ignited Italian popular music, leading to many successes for Italian songwriters, many of which became hits in English. It's worth checking out those paintings, then a translation of the Italian lyric to see how a visual image became the basis for one of the most recognizable songs ever written.

It also has a very cool structure: 2 sections (one relating to the paintings, the other to the singer's personal experience), each with a "rhythm-free" into, then the main portion at tempo.

One more fact: The song's actual title "Nel Blu Dipinto di Blu" (In the 'blue' painted in blue) had to have the key word "Volare" added to it since it had become so famous.

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