Tu si ‘na cosa grande (English: You are a great thing for me) is a beautiful song composed by the Italian singer, songwriter and actor Domenico Modugno; lyrics by Roberto Gigli. Here it is sung by the famous French singer, model and actress Vanessa Paradis in her 2013 album titled “Love Songs”.
Paintings: Jean-Pierre Cassigneul
Entirely produced and directed by Benjamin Biolay (who signs eight titles), Paradis’ “Love Songs” double album includes twenty songs (twenty-two in the limited edition and twenty-four on the collector’s edition).
Domenico Modugno
Domenico Modugno (9 January 1928 – 6 August 1994) was an Italian singer, songwriter, actor, and later in life, a member of the Italian Parliament. He is known for his 1958 international hit song “Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu (Volare)”. He is considered the first Italian cantautore (cantautore – Italian for singer-songwriter).
Modugno worked for the rights of disabled people, and in June 1987, he was elected congressman for Turin in the Italian Parliament, in the ranks of the Radical Party, a liberal-social political group. In the past, he had supported the campaigns of the Italian Socialist Party and one for divorce, in addition to criticizing the human rights violation by the regime of Augusto Pinochet, which cost him a denial of entry in Chile, where he had been scheduled to hold a concert. In this last stage of his life, instead, he was very active in social issues, fighting against inhuman conditions of patients in the Agrigento psychiatric hospital.
Modugno returned on the music scene, definitively (he already held a concert for former inmates of Agrigento’s mental asylum, in 1989), in 1992–1993. His last song was Delfini (Dolphins), in 1993 with his son, Massimo.
On 6 August 1994, Modugno died at the age of 66, from a heart attack, on the island of Lampedusa.
Tu si ‘na cosa grande lyrics
Italian
Tu sì ‘na cosa grande per me
‘na cosa ca me fà ‘nnamurà
‘na cosa ca si tu guarda a me
Me ne moro accussì
Guardanno a te
[Couplet 1]
Vurria sape’ ‘na cosa da tè
Pecchè cuanno te guardo accussì
Si pure tu te siente morì
Nun m’o dice
E nun me fai capì, ma pecchè
A dille’na vota sola
Si pure tu stai tremmanno
Dimmi ca me vuò bene
Comm’ie, comm’io
Comm’ie voglio bene a te
[Refrain]
Tu sì ‘na cosa grande pe’me
‘na cosa ca tu stessa non saie
‘na cosa ca nun aggio avuto maie
‘nu bene accussì, accussì grande
[Couplet 2]
A dille’na vota sola
Si pure tu stai tremmann
Dimmi ca me vuò bene
Comm’ie, comm’io
Comm’ie voglio bene a te
[Refrain]
Tu sì ‘na cosa grande pe’me
‘na cosa ca tu stessa non saie
‘na cosa ca nun aggio avuto maie
‘nu bene accussì, accussì grande
Accussì grande, accussì grande
English translation
You are a great thing for me
that makes me fall in love
if you look at me
I die like this
looking at you
I would like to know something from you
because when I look at you like this
you too feel like dying
you don’t tell me
and you don’t make me understand it, but why
and say it just one time
if you too are trembling
tell me you love me
like I do, like I do
like I love you…
you’re a great thing for me
so great that even you don’t know
a thing that I never had before
a love, such a great love…
Jean Pierre Cassigneul (paintings)
French painter Jean Pierre Cassigneul (born on July 13, 1935, in Paris) studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and held his first one-man exhibition at the age of 17. Cassigneul went on to exhibit in various group exhibitions, including the Salon d’Automne in Paris (of which he was a member from 1959), the Salon de la Jeune Peinture, and Meubles Tabeaux an exhibition held in 1977 at the Centre Beau Bourg.
He is known for his serene portraits of women in hats that recall the French Post-Impressionist avant-garde, including the works of Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard.
From 1956 to 1960 he studied under the French painter Roger Chapelain-Midy, and from 1965 onwards he exhibited at the Gallery Bellechasse in Paris. Since then he has exhibited across Europe, Japan, and the United States, and has also illustrated several books, among them Le Tour de Malheur by Joseph Kessel.
Sources
- Jean Pierre Cassigneul on the Willow Gallery website
- Jean-Pierre Cassigneul on artnet.com
- Domenico Modugno on Wikipedia
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