The cover of the cover

Let's be honest: it was one of the most cringe-worthy moments of the duets night at Sanremo 2026. Watching Francesco Renga and Giusy Ferreri butcher a song – to borrow a phrase from Lucio Dalla – and not just any song, but the towering “Space Oddity” by David Bowie, albeit in a "third-hand" version: a cover of the (already unfortunate) Italian cover "Ragazzo solo ragazza sola," the Italian adaptation with lyrics by Mogol. The melodramatic vocal runs of the two pop voices behind the Italian song certainly did nothing to revive the magic of Major Tom's cosmic journey, not even in the unlikely rewrite that good old Giulio Rapetti attempted, turning the London artist's lyrics into a harmless love story.

But how did the idea for this bizarre cover come about? Let's rewind to the late 1960s…

"Space Oddity," the original

Released in July 1969, "Space Oddity" was David Bowie's first hit in the UK. It came out just as the Moon landing was taking place, and the BBC used it in its coverage of Apollo 11, which hugely boosted its exposure. The song tells the story of the famous Major Tom, the astronaut who loses contact with base. The title is an overt nod to 2001: A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick. The film's sense of estrangement merges with the fascinations of science fiction, at the peak of that neo-positivist climate that was fuelling the US-USSR space race and that, a year later, would put a man on the Moon. A virtuous short-circuit for the future Starman. "It was the feeling of isolation I was experiencing at the time," he would tell Classic Rock magazine in 2012, "it was a revelation. It wrote the song in my mind."

Bowie recorded an initial demo in late 1968 for the promotional video for "Love You Till Tuesday." That version, in which he imitates the sounds of a spaceship, turned out to be a commercial flop, but it earned him the chance to sign a record deal with Mercury. This gave him the opportunity to record a full, definitive version of the song. Bowie tried in vain to bring in his friend Tony Visconti, who would go on to produce much of his career. But the producer was skeptical and decided to pass, leaving a young colleague of his, Gus Dudgeon, to get his hands on that odd experiment. Years later, Visconti would regret his stubbornness: "I thought the song was a cash-in on the first Moon landing and felt out of step with the folk-rock style of the record. I've kicked myself many, many times since, because I was completely wrong."

Indeed, because the majestic Space Oddity would remain one of Bowie's greatest feats and an absolute classic, with its seven distinct sections, Paul Buckmaster's symphonic-psychedelic arrangements, and a structure that mimics the sound of a rocket taking off. Recorded on 20 June 1969 at Trident Studios in London, the song was conceived with surgical precision: from its eerie opening, marked by Bowie's voice lost in space, to the sudden jolt of the stylophone, from the well-timed entrance of Herbie Flowers' bass and the Mellotron of Rick Wakeman (keyboardist of Yes) to an epic, heart-wrenching chorus, right up to the dissonant instrumental coda. The airy chord changes, meanwhile, betray two unlikely influences: Simon & Garfunkel and the Bee Gees.

Centred on the saga of the fictional astronaut Major Tom, "Space Oddity" is the first space ballad in rock history and the forerunner of that sci-fi strand that would become one of the cornerstones of Bowie's output. The infinite cosmos as a metaphor for inner space.

Mogol's cover

The success of "Space Oddity" (No. 5 in the UK) was such that it prompted David Bowie to record versions in other languages, including the infamous "Ragazzo solo, ragazza sola," with the aforementioned lyrics by Mogol, for the Italian market.

The Italian version came about in late 1969, at a time when record labels were producing adaptations tailored to national markets. Mogol, however, chose not to translate the original lyrics. Given the impossibility — or the poor commercial potential — of rendering the story of Major Tom in Italian, he opted for a total rewrite. The space odyssey thus becomes an urban love story: a lonely boy and a lonely girl, both nursing a romantic disappointment, wandering through a nocturnal, indifferent city.

The shift in perspective is radical. Every reference to space, technology, and the dialogue with ground control disappears. What remains are simple, recognisable images: the sleeping city, the streetlights in the night, the pain of a lost love. The metrical structure follows the original, but the imagery changes completely. For anyone familiar with "Space Oddity," the effect is one of striking semantic dissonance: the same chord progression supports two irreconcilable narratives.

The recording took place at Morgan Studios on 20 December 1969, produced by Claudio Fabi, who also helped Bowie with his Italian pronunciation. The result is a phonetically accurate performance, in which the English accent remains detectable but doesn't undermine the fluidity of the singing. The project, initially viewed with some scepticism by the British management, also served editorial purposes: it helped consolidate control over the song in a market where versions by Equipe 84 and The Computers had already appeared.

Released in Italy in 1970, "Ragazzo solo ragazza sola" long remained a side note in Bowie's career, only to be rediscovered over the years as a cult curiosity. In 2012 it returned to the spotlight thanks to Bernardo Bertolucci's film "Io e te". Today it's back in the limelight courtesy of the Ariston stage, though it's unlikely we'll remember the Renga-Ferreri duo's performance as living up to the song's history. And we'll quickly come to terms with that. For the curious, though, below you can listen to the "cover of the cover" courtesy of the Sanremo duo.

This is how Francesco Renga describes the idea behind the cover: "I have an older brother who, ever since I was a kid, would play me music from the Seventies, and among them all, David Bowie is the artist who left an indelible mark on me. He's definitely the one who instilled in me a passion for singing. I still remember the wonder I felt the first time I heard his voice sing in Italian, in this version of "Space Oddity", written for him by the great Mogol. Singing it at Sanremo is a dream come true, and Giusy's voice together with mine, I'm sure, will be a wonderful surprise." These, meanwhile, are Giusy Ferreri's words: "I welcomed Francesco's invitation with great joy, as I've always wanted the chance to sing with him. It will be an interpretation approached with great responsibility and respect, set to the hypnotic, dreamlike notes of the Thin White Duke and with the romantic, melancholy lyrics rewritten by the great songwriter Mogol."

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