In 1972, Italian Singer Sings The Trippiest Song with English-Sounding Gibberish

“Prisencolinensinainciusol” by Italian singer Adriano Celentano, and performed by Celentano and his wife, singer/actress-turned-record producer Claudia Mori was released as a single in 1972.

The song is intended to sound to its Italian audience as if it is sung in English spoken with an American accent, designed to be “Bob Dylan-esque”; however, the lyrics are deliberately unintelligible gibberish with the exception of the words “all right”. Celentano’s intention with the song was not to create a humorous novelty song but to explore communication barriers. “Ever since I started singing, I was very influenced by American music and everything Americans did. So at a certain point, because I like American slang—which, for a singer, is much easier to sing than Italian—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.”