Italian Disco Pill: Raffaella Carrà’s “Luca”

Italy’s first explicitly and mainstream gay anthem appeared on primetime TV in 1978.

It’s 1978 and a cha cha cha groove undergirds the plight of a woman whose boyfriend left her for another guy. When she first introduced the song during her own variety show Ma Che Sera, she first emerged in the orchestra. Clad in a crimson gown with a hint of shoulder pads and wing-like motif on the bustier, she slowly made her way to the stage, stopping among audience members while singing the refrain. She was acting as if she was letting them in on a secret. 

The tone is not plaintive or accusatory: rather, Carrà sings of this experience with irony and levity. 

At first, She excuses herself for being low-spirited and admits to needing to vent: Non mi mandate a quel paese / ma sono un poco fuori fase / se non mi sfogo con qualcuno / un giorno o l’altro scoppierò.

She was smitten with this golden-haired guy to the point that she never cheated on him even in her fantasies:  Era un ragazzo dai capelli d’oro / e gli volevo un bene da morire / io lo pensavo tutto il giorno intero / senza tradirlo neppure col pensiero.

Yet, one afternoon, she spotted him from her window with another tow-headed guy—maybe a vagrant? 

Ma un pomeriggio dalla mia finestra / lo vidi insieme ad un ragazzo biondo / chissà chi era, forse un vagabondo?

The second verse has Carrà vacillating between self doubt and asserting her status. “I thought I was attractive—that’s what many people told me. Either he is clueless, or there’s something wrong [with the situation]”: Credevo di essere attraente / così mi ha detto tanta gente / o lui non ha capito niente / o c’è qualcosa che non va.

The chorus is a Stravinsky-chord-like repetition of the name Luca: Luca, Luca, Luca, Luca, Luca / cosa ti è successo? / Luca, Luca, Luca, Luca / con chi sei adesso? / Luca, Luca, Luca, Luca / non si saprà mai.

A fun fact of Raffaella's debut of "Luca" on her show "Ma Che Sera '' is her choice to perform it seated between her costume designer, Luca Sabatelli, and an unidentified blonde young man. The way she looks upon them suggests a shared secret or intimate connection between the three. This could mean that the song was inspired by her collaborator and long time friend Sabatelli, expressing an innocent “jealousy” that she could not be the center of his attention anymore. 

“Luca” cemented Carrà’s status as a gay icon. “[She was] the embodiment of Saturday-night-tv femininity, but she was absolutely beloved by the gays, maybe mostly thanks to this song” writes Ferdinando Molteni in L’anello di Bindi, a survey of queer themes in Italian pop and disco songs. 

“She was the least predictable gay icon,” Molteni continues “joyful, lacking edges, yet the most beloved one among the LGBTQ population.” 

The lyrics were written by Gianni Boncompagni, a trailblazer in Italian entertainment who, on top of revolutionizing radio (Bandiera gialla, Alto gradimento) and tv (Discoring, Ma che sera, Non è la RAI) also had a prolific career as a lyricist for the likes of Carrà, Patty Pravo, Mina, and Renato Zero. He had a knack for lyrics that hinged on immediacy and accessible wordplay, and always used a language that worked across demographics. His lyrics do, for instance, lack the yearning and languid eroticism seen in the work of Cristiano Malgioglio or Franco Califano but they’re cheeky and assertive and create ever-lasting earworms.

Luca was hardly the only song whose title consists of a male given name who ends up being the protagonist of the story told within the song. In 1976 ABBA  released “Fernando,” who is just a lovelorn guy in its Swedish original and a revolutionary hero in its English version. In 1979, Cristiano Malgioglio released “Ernesto,” a song where the title character is addressed as someone who is hard to be in a relationship with, causing feelings of confusion and codependence. In 1980, Carrà came out with the more upbeat “Pedro,” about  a local guy from Santa Fe who sweeps a tourist off her feet. Thirty-ish years later, Lady Gaga must have looked to the past Eurodisco tradition with her mid tempo song “Alejandro.”