Milan – “Night before exams” is the timeless song that accompanies generations of high school graduates for forty years: the single by Antonello Venditti came out in 1984. And this year the film of the same name directed by also comes of age Fausto Brizzi. “I too listened to Notte at full volume before my high school exams: there was still the car radio with the cassette player and I practically wore out that tape”, he confesses Sarah Masters, the actress originally from Luino who plays Alicethe best friend of Luca (Nicolas Vaporidis). He still advises students of that refrain: “Because even if fashion passes, traditions remain.” “I may be obvious, but it’s the song that most reminds me of maturity”, he confirms Aleksander Zielinski, Lazza’s master (thanked and acclaimed from the pulpit of Sanremo) but also of more than twenty thousand Milanese. Then he thinks of himself as a student: “At the time I listened to a lot of classical music and De André’s The Clouds”. He encourages graduates to also listen to Mozart and Bach: “Music promotes cognitive processes, it helps a lot in studying.”
He’s about to fire one new “Night before exams“ and it is with a choir of artists that we compose the soundtrack of the 2024 maturity. It will be a perfect moment for Ghemon, the rapper, singer-songwriter and stand-up comedian: “Because it’s a song that talks about real life, which sometimes trips you up, but there’s always the desire to finally make it. A tending towards the future, towards one’s own perfect moment.” “The album I had on rotation is The miseducation of Lauryn Hill. I think I know the entire tracklist and nuances of that album by heart”: this is the singer-songwriter’s memory Valentina Parisse. “When I was in high school I was already thoughtful and “dark” as you see me today. I remember that during my high school years I discovered Yung Lean, I was facing a period of transition in my musical tastes and I felt much more free and open, capable of welcoming something new compared to what I had heard up to that point. Kyoto was one of his songs that I listened to the most. Seen it all before by Bring Me The Horizon leaves me with a bittersweet memory of those times” says the singer-songwriter Sethu.
“This must be the place by Talking Heads was the soundtrack of my last year of high school – says the singer-songwriter Bartolini –. The song I listened to the most with my father on the way to and from school, before he left. It’s also the first one I listened to when I got my driving license. And Lil Wayne’s Nightmares of the Bottom was my alarm clock for the last two years of high school and the soundtrack to nights out in the provinces.” The memory of Aylesinger-songwriter of the latest edition of the talent show Amici, is vivid: “At school I was one of those kids who stay on the sidelines. I lived very much inside myself, in my own parallel world. But trap music allowed me to find a point of contact with my mates, I listened to a lot of Falling down by Lil Peep and XxxTentacion, thasup in the period of M8nstar, Fsk Satellite”.
He chooses Italy the singer-songwriter Keyra: “When I graduated, a fun song was released and was the perfect meme for many situations, including high school graduation: Let’s go to command by Fabio Rovazzi. A collective anthem by my entire group. But I am an admirer of the classics that remain in your memory. heart forever, like your mother’s Chanel bag that you know will never go out of fashion: Venditti’s Night before the exams is an obvious but unassailable choice. I remember the tears I made thinking back that they would be my last moments in that school”. The singer-songwriter veers towards an unusual choice Ethan: “Djavan was a sigh of relief during my high school years, in particular Flor de lis gave me a lot of serenity, a bit like all the Brazilian music of the 70s and 80s. I graduated with this song in my head and shortly after I left for Brazil.”
«The soundtrack of my maturity? My first girlfriend and classmate who repeated the program, the essay, doubts and fears to me…”, he jokes Lorenzo Baglioni, who listened to U2 and Coldplay between rehearsals. And who today lends a hand to the kids by leafing through the “didactic” songs composed together with his brother Michele, from Il congiuntivo “to avoid serious errors in the theme” to the rap song on Ruffini’s Theorem “for those who have a mathematics test on the second test “. Maturandi is dedicated to them: “We play with a mega pre- and pro-maturity review and, in the chorus, with a more emotional mood we talk about that magical moment. We tried – he confesses – even if in the end it’s a graduation song that makes you cry: Night before exams.”
