Nicola Salerno, also known as Nisa (11 March 1910 – 22 May 1969) was an Italian

lyricist A lyricist is a songwriter who writes lyrics (the spoken words), as opposed to a composer, who writes the song's music which may include but not limited to the melody, harmony, arrangement and accompaniment. Royalties A lyricist's incom ...

. He formed a famous

songwriting A songwriter is a musician who professionally composes musical compositions or writes lyrics for songs, or both. The writer of the music for a song can be called a composer, although this term tends to be used mainly in the classical music gen ...

duo with

Renato Carosone Renato Carosone (; born Renato Carusone; 3 January 1920 – 20 May 2001) was an Italian musician. He was a prominent figure of the Italian music scene in the second half of the 20th century. He was also a modern performer of the so-called ' ...

Career

Nicola Salerno was born in

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

, Italy. His first hit was "Eulalia Torricelli" of 1947, about the unhappy love story between a wealthy girl from

Forlì Forlì ( , ; rgn, Furlè ; la, Forum Livii) is a ''comune'' (municipality) and city in Emilia-Romagna, Northern Italy, and is the capital of the province of Forlì-Cesena. It is the central city of Romagna. The city is situated along the Via ...

and a guy named Giosuè. Nisa put the whole team of songwriters in the lyrics, as heirs to the beautiful Eulalia: "Un castello lo dà a Nisa, un castello lo dà a Redi, un castello, ma il più bello, al maestro Olivieri lo dà" ("she gives one castle to Nisa, one castle to Redi, but the most beautiful ones goes to Maestro Olivieri"). Nisa and Carosone met in 1955. It was Mariano Rapetti,

Ricordi Ricordi may refer to: People *Giovanni Ricordi (1785–1853), Italian violinist and publishing company founder * Giulio Ricordi (1840–1912), Italian publisher and musician Music *Casa Ricordi, an Italian music publishing company established i ...

record company's director - and father of lyricist Mogol - who suggested that they should work together to enter a

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmi ...

contest. Nisa brought Carosone three texts to be set to music. One of them was titled '' Tu vuò fà l'americano''. Carosone had an instant inspiration and started composing a

boogie-woogie Boogie-woogie is a genre of blues music that became popular during the late 1920s, developed in African-American communities since 1870s.Paul, Elliot, ''That Crazy American Music'' (1957), Chapter 10, p. 229. It was eventually extended from pi ...

on the

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...

keyboard. It took just fifteen minutes to create Carosone's most famous song, that became a worldwide success. Their most famous hits include "'O suspiro", "Torero", "Tu' vuo' fa' l'americano", "Caravan Petrol", "Pigliate 'na pastiglia" and "'O Sarracino". Nisa worked also with other songwriters. Among his best-known lyrics are " Guaglione", winning song of the Festival of Naples in 1956, and "

Non ho l'età "Non ho l'età (per amarti)" (Italian for "I'm not old enough (to love you)"), usually given as just "Non ho l'età" (), was the winning song in the Eurovision Song Contest 1964, held in Copenhagen. It was performed in Italian by Gigliola Cinquet ...

", with which

Gigliola Cinquetti Gigliola Cinquetti (; born Giliola Cinquetti on 20 December 1947) is an Italian singer, songwriter, and television presenter. Life and career Gigliola Cinquetti was born into a wealthy family in Verona. From the ages of 9 to 13, she studied and ...

won both the

Sanremo Music Festival The Sanremo Music Festival, officially the Italian Song Festival () and commonly known as just (), is the most popular Italian song contest and awards ceremony, held annually in the city of Sanremo, Liguria. It is the longest-running annua ...

and the Eurovision Song Contest in 1964. Besides writing lyrics, Nicola Salerno was also an illustrator. He was the author, for example, of cover designs for some Neapolitan music scores published between the 1920s and 1930s. He died in Naples in 1969.

See too

We No Speak Americano "We No Speak Americano" is a song by Australian band Yolanda Be Cool and producer DCUP. It was released on the independent Australian label Sweat It Out on 27 February 2010. The song samples the 1956 Italian song " Tu Vuò Fà L'Americano" in ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Salerno, Nicola Italian songwriters Male songwriters Eurovision Song Contest winners 1910 births 1969 deaths Musicians from Naples 20th-century Italian musicians 20th-century Italian male musicians Lyricists