I Giardini Di Marzo Lyrics in English by Lucio Battisti

Malinconie is the plural of malinconia, meaning 'melancholy' or 'sadness'. It's a beautiful and evocative word that captures a specific emotional state.

In the song, Battisti sings about "Fiumi azzurri e colline e praterie / Dove corrono dolcissime le mie malinconie" (Blue rivers and hills and meadows / Where my melancholies sweetly run). The personification of melancholies running 'sweetly' through nature creates a poignant and poetic image, suggesting a gentle, almost cherished sadness rather than a harsh one. It's a less common, more literary way to express sadness, making it particularly interesting.

Battisti opens this one mid-thought, like he's already been talking for a while: "Che anno è, che giorno è?" ("What year is it, what day is it?"). It's a song about time collapsing, an adult mind wandering back into a kid's memories without warning. The verses are small and specific rather than grand: "Il carretto passava e quell'uomo gridava, 'Gelati'" ("The cart went by and that man shouted, 'Ice cream'"), the family's money running out by the twenty-first of the month, a coat that was black with flowers not yet faded. None of it is dressed up. It's just what he remembers.

Then the title image lands as a kind of turning point: "I giardini di marzo si vestono di nuovi colori" ("The gardens of March put on new colors"), spring arriving right as a girl walks beside him and tells him he's dying, whether that's teenage heartbreak or something closer to giving up on staying a kid. He answers with "Ma il coraggio di vivere quello ancora non c'è" ("But the courage to live, that still isn't here") twice, and doesn't pretend he found it by the end. Mogol wrote this about growing up poor after the war, and you can hear it in how ordinary the details stay even while the melody keeps swelling underneath them.