Adriano Celentano & Manu Chao

A thread about novelty songs brought me to Freezing Cold in 89 Twoso, Mike Reid’s closest he ever came to a Krautrock hiphop avant-garde new-wave disco knees up. It’s still a record I’d DJ if someone went ‘but all novelty records or songs by DJs are naff aren’t they?’ because it rocks hard.

But I never knew the original Italian singer of Prisencolinensinainciusol later did a multi-lingual version live with Manu Chao…it’s like a studio rave meets an interview, in Spanish, Portugese, Italian and the nonsense of the original, it reflects it’s original intention to surpass language. ‘Celentano’s intention with the song was to explore communications barriers…”I thought that I would write a song which would only have as its theme the inability to communicate. And to do this, I had to write a song where the lyrics didn’t mean anything.’

I’d love to know who the original musicians were on the original, since it sounds like a Can record, with horns, with a proto-rap over the top, with hey, Bo Diddley popping by for the sung bits. Very ahead of it’s time, and crazily good for a novelty single!