Rapsodia (Mia Martini song)
 |
 "Rapsodia" | |
|---|---|
| File:Mia Martini - Rapsodia.jpg | |
| Eurovision Song Contest 1992 entry | |
| Country | |
| Artist(s) | |
| Language | |
| Composer(s) | Giuseppe Dati |
| Lyricist(s) | Giancarlo Bigazzi |
| Conductor | Marco Falagiani |
| Finals performance | |
| Final result | 4th |
| Final points | 111 |
| Entry chronology | |
| ◄ "Comme è ddoce 'o mare" (1991) | |
| "Sole d'Europa" (1993) ► | |
"Rapsodia" (English translation: "Rhapsody") was the Italian entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 1992, performed in Italian by Mia Martini, one of Italy's most successful and celebrated female artists of all time, making her second appearance in the Contest after 1977's "Libera", which finished 13th in a field of 18 participating countries.
The song is a dramatic and despairing ballad, in which Martini sings about two "old lovers" who happen to meet in a bar. She sings that they have "left their families, betrayed their friends" as part of their quest for "another youth", still "they don't want advice about how to be happy". They ask themselves "who they really are", as they sit there "worn out, ashamed, yet sincere", wondering "why it all had to end", confessing that they can't get "this life" to work out. The entire situation is described as "this immense and hopeless rhapsody", and as the old lovers leave the bar - and each other - they both become "songs of once upon a time".
The song was performed nineteenth on the night, following Denmark's Kenny Lübcke & Lotte Nilsson with "Alt det som ingen ser" and preceding Yugoslavia's "Extra Nena" with "Ljubim te pesmama". At the close of voting, it had received 111 points, including 12 points from France, Finland, Norway and The Netherlands, 10 points from Cyprus and Iceland, and 8 points from Sweden and Portugal, placing it 4th in a field of 23, a considerably better result than in 1977.
"Rapsodia" was succeeded as Italian representative at the 1993 Contest by Enrico Ruggeri with "Sole d'Europa".
Three years after participating in the contest Martini unexpectedly died, at just 47 years old.
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