The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Sunday, January 12, 2025

Notably: Ever since my wife Cheryl’s choice of moniker as grandma became Gigi I’ve had “Gigi l’amoroso” ringing in my ears, the song that became the Number 1 hit in Lebanon in 1974 and, I imagine, in France, the song by the French singer known as Dalida, big in Lebanon because she was born Egyptian and was later naturalized French. She died in 1987 at the mere age of 54, by her own hand, leaving a note that read: “La vie m’est insupportable. Pardonnez-moi.” “Life is unbearable for me. Forgive me.” She is buried in Montmartre Cemetery, the grounds that hold Berlioz, Francois Truffaut (the great movie director and writer), Degas, Offenbach, Zola, the Dumas (father and son), Chopin, Jim Morrison and so many more. It was fashionable, at least for my dear mother, to make fun of Dalida and to pretend that she didn’t like her, I suppose the way the rest of us relish saying Taylor Swift is unbearable (at least Philip Glass’s monotony is studied and rich, and punches surprises). So when I was younger I pretended to dislike her too. But now it’s impossible to hold back tears when I hear Gigi l’amoroso, a seven-minute song about a young Italian boy who wins all the hearts in his little Italian village until he decides to make it big in Hollywood–and gets his heart broken, returning to the old village in shame. It’s as cheesy as it gets, and Dalida gives it all her chevre, so I don’t know what the tears are about: nostalgia for 1974, the last year of peace in Lebanon? My mother, any thought of whom sends me reeling? Age? Dalida’s Levantine-accented French? My own heart so often broken by this country? I don;t know, but the song is its own amoroso, and Gigi chose her moniker well.

—P.T.

Maybe someday you’ll come
To the village I’m from
Right by the bay of beautiful Napoli
Where each Saturday night
As the vino takes flight
We sing and dance and love of life is free
Giorgio plays the guitar
Sandro the mandolin
And me I dance and bang on the tambourine
But when Gigi appears
The hurrahs and the cheers
Come from the crowd as he begins to sing

And in between each song
They shout and sing out strong

We love you
Gigi l’Amoroso
The greatest Italian lover since man discovered fire
Gigi l’Amoroso
If you only knew what you make us do
With your songs of desire
For each and every one his favourite song
Volare, Come Prima, Ö Sole Mio

Everyone loved Gigi
The baker’s wife would leave her shop just to hear him sing
The notary’s wife who was a saint blessed him and made the sign of the cross every time
He opened his mouth, and the widow, the young one
Tore her wigs to shreds and put on fancy lace
And on and on, everyone loved Gigi
Even me, even me, but
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Came a lady one day
Rich as all USA
Who told him Hollywood wasn’t very far
Oh ! he liked what he heard
And believed every word
Like Valentino he’d become a star
We were all at the boat
With a lump in our throat
To wish him well and show him how much we cared
Everyone in the crowd were all openly proud
He’d made it now beyond the village square

And when he said Goodbye
We all began to cry

We love you
Gigi l’Amoroso
The greatest Italian lover since man discovered fire
Gigi l’Amoroso
If you only knew what you make us do
With your songs of desire
Arrivederci, Gigi, much success
The tears you see are tears of happiness

Gigi…
We stayed ’till the boat was out of sight
And we all returned to the village, but
It wasn’t the same after he left
Everything seemed different
The baker’s wife refused to light the oven
The notary’s wife, wouldn’t even talk to her husband
She just kept counting her beads
And the widow, the young one, cried and went into mourning for a second time
And me…

Many days have gone by
Oh the years how they fly
The fountain even cried we all missed him so
Not a word, not a sign
My heart measured the time
Oh Gigi, Gigi why did you have to go ?
Our performance went on
But the spirit was gone
Each song we sang was only a memory
At the end of our show
As the silence would grow
Each night I’d hear his haunting melody

If you only knew
What you make us do
With your songs of desire
Gigi…

Gigi !?
Is that you in the shadow?
It is you Gigi
Come closer!
Oh let me look at you
You are crying ? But why are you crying ?
Oh ! l’American !
Now I understand
What do they know except Rock and Roll and “Baby, Baby, Baby”
That’s not for you, you are Giuseppe, Fabrizio, Luca Santini
And you are Napoletano !
Listen Gigi, listen… that’s Giorgio playing
And that, that’s Sandro’s mandolin
Wait, Gigi, wait !
I’ll get my tambourine
Wait, you can’t leave like that !
This is your home!
Listen… you hear them Gigi ?
The whole town is coming !
They want you to sing Gigi !
To sing for them
They love you Gigi, everybody loves you
Sing Gigi ! Canta ! Bravo !!! Bravo !
Carmella, Carmella Carmella lo sai che é arrivato Gigi Cesarina
Cesarina scendi è arrivato Gigi da Hollywood ! Ma se te lo dico io che é arrivato scendi no
Guaglione, guaglione guaglione corri va a dire a zio Gennaro Che é arrivato lo zio Gigi dall’AmericaBravo !

To each and everyone his favourite song
Volare, Come Prima, Ô Sole Mio
We love you Gigi l’Amoroso
The greatest Italian lover since man discovered fire
Gigi l’Amoros

If you only knew what you make us do
With your songs of desire
To each and everyone his favourite song
Volare, Come Prima, Ô Sole Mio
We love you Gigi l’Amoroso…

 

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FlaglerLive News Service, Palm Coast (@flaglerlive) • Instagram photos and videos

‘Oh, Trotwood, Trotwood!’ exclaimed Mr. Wickfield, wringing his hands. ‘What I have come down to be, since I first saw you in this house! I was on my downward way then, but the dreary, dreary road I have traversed since! Weak indulgence has ruined me. Indulgence in remembrance, and indulgence in forgetfulness. My natural grief for my child’s mother turned to disease; my natural love for my child turned to disease. I have infected everything I touched. I have brought misery on what I dearly love, I know—you know! I thought it possible that I could truly love one creature in the world, and not love the rest; I thought it possible that I could truly mourn for one creature gone out of the world, and not have some part in the grief of all who mourned. Thus the lessons of my life have been perverted! I have preyed on my own morbid coward heart, and it has preyed on me. Sordid in my grief, sordid in my love, sordid in my miserable escape from the darker side of both, oh see the ruin I am, and hate me, shun me!’

–From Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield (1850).

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