Gianna Nannini in an interview: "The wrinkles make my voice beautiful"
The property of Gianna Nannini in the center of Milan is divided like a commercial building. Here people work and live, on several floors. There is a gym that has hired a renowned New York Pilates school. Next door are the office and the studio, and the musician lives one floor up. For the interview, she invites to the holy of holies, to her studio, which is decorated with many large-format portraits of nannini. Here she has sketches for much of the songs of her new album "Inno" recorded, which were only then recorded in the London Abbey Road Studio with the London Studio Orchestra. The 56-year-old receives with a firm handshake. She wears a bright T-shirt, a black sweater, cognac-colored pants and boots. Her face is unadorned, the brown hairs are dislocated from the head. She looks tired at first glance - and then speaks amazingly spirited, with sweeping gestures. Gianna Nannini likes to laugh about herself, too. Her voice sounds a bit like a rusty exhaust. At the end of the conversation she has confidence and calls for her daughter Penelope. A petite black-haired princess, with bright eyes, pretty, charming and very self-confident.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: Your daughter is now two and a half. Does she have much in common with you?
Gianna Nannini: Oh yes, she is very bright. She often chills me and then laughs. I often move like a baby elephant (gets up and tramps through the studio). Unlike me, Penelope is a very good observer. She sees everything. She would also be a good personal assistant.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: That might be a bit early.
Gianna Nannini: For me she picks the clothes I'm supposed to wear. My mother always massages her legs very professionally. A special service because she loves her grandmother so much.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: And what you wear today, has chosen your daughter?
Gianna Nannini: Sure. Penelope is very stylish. She has a good sense of aesthetics. Some of my friends have noticed that we often go in the partner-look. Anyhow, if she is not running around in a pink dress. I like sports, preferably unisex stuff.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: You once said that your daughter waited until you were ready for a child. The anthroposophists say that a child chooses his parents.
Gianna Nannini: I believe that a child chooses when and to whom it comes. I had long been convinced that I had no chance of having a child, and then she was suddenly in me.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: And now you are a different person.
Gianna Nannini: I discovered true tenderness through her. A tenderness and love that go much deeper than in a love relationship. In comparison, the so-called true love is something fleeting. The love for the child stays forever. And I have become more beautiful. The birth of my daughter has made me more beautiful.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: Why are you laughing?
Gianna Nannini: Because I compliment myself. I used to be fixated on being skinny. I was a diet junkie. Now I do not care anymore. I stop dieting ...
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: ... because you are very slim.
Gianna Nannini: I have lost weight since birth although I eat normally and drink wine as well. No idea why this is so. If I had known that making children would make me slim, I would have had babies before (she laughs loudly and taps her thighs).
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: But some sport make sure!
Gianna Nannini: Only Pilates. But at least twice a week. It is especially good for the abdominal muscles. But you should start with that before you get pregnant.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: Have you ever thought about plastic surgery?
Gianna Nannini: No. I do not want to change anything, because I think I would sound different then. My wrinkles make my voice beautiful. I just stopped looking in the mirror. My body is like a Stradivari. New violins do not sound nice. I did not even get my nose fixed even though I had broken her twice. But it also makes up part of the sound of my voice.
I discovered the true tenderness with Penelope. In comparison, the so-called true love is something fleeting
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: Having children is not just happiness for working mothers. What is the hardest for you?
Gianna Nannini: The new rhythm. I have no time to sleep. I have to interrupt my dreams. But I love my dreams because they help me with my songs.I'll probably call my next album "Broken Dreams".
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: Broken dreams in the night. And in the day?
Gianna Nannini: Honestly, it was really stressful. For a new album, I have never been able to devote a long time to the individual songs because I did not have time to think. I had to rely completely on my inspiration. But maybe that's why the album has become so good. Sometimes I exposed the microphone and asked the spirits of inspiration to kiss me. That's what they did.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: Ghosts?
Gianna Nannini: They were transparent. They are probably the same spirits that can heal. Because at the same time I was still injured. I had broken my ankle.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: It was in the papers: a bicycle accident, where you collided with a boar.
Gianna Nannini: Exactly. If you make a good album, it does not interest a pig, but a bicycle accident with a boar makes you a star.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: True. We also heard about it with us.
Gianna Nannini: See you! Oh, I miss Germany and the Germans. I have a German musician in my band again. I like your passion for logic: Heidegger and Kant. And you also have a different style of education than the Italians.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: Namely?
Gianna Nannini: My Berlin friends let their children scream longer for longer if they feel that it's not serious. That the child only wants attention. The Italian mothers melt with pity on every child's tears.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: You are a mom!
Gianna Nannini: But I think it's like the Germans. If Penelope needs comfort, I'll comfort her. If she's just capricious, I will not respond.
Italian women are too busy with blowjobs. But you will not get pregnant from the blowjob
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: Will she be such a sweeper as you?
Gianna Nannini: Oh, she should dare something. But I teach her to handle dangers properly without being too scared.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: How do you manage everyday life?
Gianna Nannini: Using babysitters. Besides, there are always a lot of people in my house. We are like a family. And there lives another good friend with me. We have known each other for a long time, and I know that I can rely on them.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: Some time ago you even expressed the wish for a second child. Has anything changed?
Gianna Nannini: Yes, I just do not have time for a second child. It would be impossible to continue making music with two children. Besides, the doctors told me that I was risking my life. I prefer to live.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: They were massively attacked for their late pregnancy and then aggressively dealt with it by having their nude baby abdomen scanned. Did the reactions hurt you a lot?
Gianna Nannini: Most of the shame articles came out when I was in the sixth month. From then on I have not read any newspapers. The left, the right, they all had something to say about my pregnancy, without any specific information.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: What may be related to the fact that you have provoked the public again and again. On the one hand, as a woman of Italian sentiment, you have allowed something unfamiliar. On the other hand, you have repeatedly pointed to the discrimination of women. Why do not more women go to the barricades in Italy by seriously engaging in politics?
Gianna Nannini: It's changing so slowly. So far, we Italians were the last to engage in politics. Traditionally this was never an option for Italian women. You should get the kids and stay home. So the Italian man likes his wife.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: Yet today only just under one and a half babies come to an Italian.
Gianna Nannini: That's right, we're now at the bottom of the European list with our birth rate. Italians have sex, but they do not sleep properly anymore. The Italian women are too busy with blowjobs. But you will not get pregnant from the blowjob.
My religion is the music. Concerts have a ritual function
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: One would like to know how St. Mary got pregnant, right?
Gianna Nannini: First, Maria was sent the angel. After Maria I was the next one.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: At least you are not telling who your child's father is.
Speaking of the Bible, if St. Elizabeth in her old age could still give birth to John the Baptist, why should not I become a late mother? And since Elisabeth has born such a great guy, we can only expect great things from my daughter Penelope. She will surely become a revolutionary. (laughs) By the way, the church also had big problems with my late pregnancy.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: Having children would have to be in the spirit of the church.
Gianna Nannini: But somehow I scare the people there. Actually, I have nothing against the Bible. I have talked a lot about it with a priest and peace-fighter with whom I once traveled through Iraq. This religious poetry is actually very human and beautiful. But the church prefers to scare people.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: What do you believe in?
Gianna Nannini: My religion is the music. Concerts have a ritual function.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: Shortly before his resignation, you praised the German Pope Benedict in an interview.
Gianna Nannini: I liked his sobriety. But I would never bow to a Pope in reverence and say, "Dad, I love you." In addition, I have my own experience with the Vatican: When I got my books on the First World War for my PhD thesis from the Vatican Archives, the prefect called when he saw me: "Ah, there's the woman who is not has all the cups in the cupboard! "
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: You have always been very contentious. But in your own version of "Tornerai", a classic from the 30s, you sound unusually sentimental. You wrote the song at the desk of your deceased father. Was that a retrospective of childhood?
Gianna Nannini: Because of my daughter, I am now more often in my parents' house. I sat down at my father's desk, where he often sang the traditional version of the song "Tornerai".
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: You had an ambivalent relationship with him. He wanted you to take over his Italian-known confectionery company in Siena. But you refused.
Gianna Nannini: I loved him. But I had to leave home as a teenager because I wanted to be free. He was a good father. The only thing he always confused was that I speak so indistinctly. That is still the case today. He even gave me an Italian course for Englishmen, because he thought I could learn not to swallow whole words all the time. Otherwise, he trusted me to one day continue his business. He found that women are better bosses than men, and had also filled the corresponding positions in his company with women. He was a feminist.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: Do you have concrete plans for the future?
Gianna Nannini: When I grow up, I want to be a senator, so stay home and do nothing. No, seriously, many years ago I was once proposed as a honorary senator. But I refused. I found it cynical that one should be honored for his services to the culture of his country.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde-woman.de: That you lazy sit back and do nothing, it is difficult to imagine.
Gianna Nannini: There is a new project. I've read a lot of books by the writer Elsa Morante lately. A true revolutionary. She belonged to a circle of artists who met regularly in Rome. I want to do something similar here in Milan. That's why I founded a foundation that brings together artists from all fields. We should help and inspire each other. That is our future.
