Thirty-nine countries are competing with the aim to lift the trophy in Malmö. The thirty-fifth country to be introduced is Italy. The country won the contest twice and this year Marco Mengoni will fly the Italian flag in Sweden.

Basic information

Performer: Marco Mengoni
Song: L’essenziale
Language: Italian
Music: Francesco De Benedittis, Roberto Casalino, Marco Mengoni
Lyrics: Roberto Casalino

The song

This year’s Italian entry is a ballad about finding the essential things in life. The singer sings about new spaces and peaceful moments to find who is essential for him.

Sostengono gli eroi
se il gioco si fa duro
è da giocare
Beati loro poi
se scambiano le offese con il bene
Succede anche a noi
di far la guerra e ambire poi alla pace
e nel silenzio mio
annullo ogni tuo singolo dolore
Per apprezzare quello che
non ho saputo scegliere

Mentre il mondo cade a pezzi
io compongo nuovi spazi
e desideri che
appartengono anche a te
che da sempre sei per me
l’essenziale

The performer

Marco Mengoni rose to fame in 2009, after winning the third series of Italian talent show X Factor. His debut extended play, Dove si vola, was preceded by the single with the same title, which reached the top spot of the Italian Top Digital Downloads chart and also served as his coronation song. In February 2010, Mengoni competed in the 60th Sanremo Music Festival with the song Credimi ancora, placing third in a field of fifteen. The song was included in his second extended play, Re matto, which debuted at number one in Italy. The EP was promoted through an Italian tour, which yielded the live album Re matto live. Mengoni’s first full-length studio album, Solo was released in September 2010, and it was certified gold by the Federation of the Italian Music Industry. During his career, Mengoni has received several awards, including two TRL Awards and five Wind Music Awards. In 2010 he also became the first Italian artist to win the MTV Europe Music Award for Best European Act.

The songwriters

The song is written by Marco Mengoni himself and Francesco De Benedittis and Roberto Casalino. De Benedittis is a prolific composer and worked with many international artists including Tina Arena. Casalino is also a singer and in the past he collaborated with last year’s Italian hopeful Nina Zilli on different music projects.

The national selection

Rai, the national Italian broadcaster, used for another year the Sanremo Song Festival as the mechanism to select its 2013 Eurovision candidate and entry. Marco Mengoni won the Sanremo festival and he was chosen to represent Italy in Malmö.

Italy in the Eurovision Song Contest

Italy was one of the seven countries that competed in the first Eurovision Song Contest in 1956. Over the years the country won twice, first in 1964 and a second time in 1990. Italy was very successful in general with a high number of top five placing. The only last place to date came in 1966 with nil points. The country had already taken many breaks when they eventually withdrew from the contest after 1997. 2011 marked Italy’s return and their hopeful Raphael Gualazzi placed second. Last year Nina Zilli received a respectable 9th place.

Statistics

This will be Italy’s 39th participation in the Eurovision Song Contest. It is the 20th time that Italy is being represented by a male soloist. The country returned to the contest after 14 years making it the third longest gap between two participations behind Malta’s 16 years of abstinence from 1976 to 1990 and Monaco’s 1980-2003 break. It will be the thirty-sixth time that the Italian entry is performed entirely in Italian.

Italian vote in Eurovision

Throughout its participation in Eurovision, Italy gave its most points to France while Portugal awarded the most points to Italy in the Eurovision Song Contest.

The betting odds

According to oddschecker.com, Italy is currently the sixth favourite to win the Eurovision Song Contest.

Auguriamo all’Italia e a Marco Mengoni buona fortuna ed un buon risultato a Malmö!

Videos

Preview clip

Sanremo performance

Solo

Tomorrow another country will be introduced (hint – a Eurovision experience is once in a lifetime!)

Have your say

You can rate the Italian entry by voting in our poll

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You can view previous parts of this series by clicking here