Chronicle of a foretold separation

For more than fifteen years they represented the golden tandem of Italian song. Music and words ran on parallel yet convergent tracks: the melodic invention of Lucio Battisti, the evocative writing of Giulio Rapetti, aka Mogol. Already by the late Seventies, however, that balance had begun to crack. Starting with “Una donna per amico” (1978), the creative relationship began to show its first signs of divergence. The lyrics were still credited to Mogol, but the musical axis was shifting decisively abroad: recordings in England, meticulously detailed production, growing attention to funk and electronics. Tracks like “Prendila così” and the title track showed a more layered musical writing, less reliant on the traditional verse-chorus form. As if the music were beginning to follow a logic of its own, independent of the lyrics.

In 1980 came “Una giornata uggiosa,” the final chapter of the collaboration. The atmosphere is darker, more introverted. Electronic keyboards take centre stage; the sonic architecture hints at a radical shift ahead. On a symbolic level too, the album seems to register an imminent separation: “Con un nastro rosa,” with its line “Lo scopriremo solo vivendo,” takes on, in retrospect, the weight of a farewell.

Behind the divorce

The rift, however, wasn't purely artistic. There was also a financial knot, tied to the management of rights. The two had founded the publishing companies Edizioni musicali Acqua azzurra and Numero Uno to directly control rights and productions. Over time, the division of shares became a source of friction.

Mogol has explained several times that the issue wasn't merely financial, including in the interview featured on our pages: “It was I who refused to keep writing with him. I had simply asked him for equal terms; at first he seemed to accept, then he changed his mind, and so I decided to walk away. When we started working together, Siae royalties were split 8/24ths to the arranger and 4/24ths to the songwriter, and I accepted those terms, even though at the time I was already known and he wasn't – but that was the norm. In the end, though, in the publishing rights I had 9% and he had 52%; the fair thing would have been 50/50, and I asked for that in order to continue our co-publishing deal. But he didn't accept. I told him I would no longer work with him. It wasn't about money, it was a matter of principle.” Mogol has also suggested that Battisti's wife, Grazia Letizia Veronese, took on an increasingly influential role in decision-making, hardening positions. That clash with “Velezia” would go on for a long time even after Battisti's death, through lawsuits and venomous interviews.

For his part, Battisti spoke of “irreconcilable artistic differences.” There was no public rupture, no dramatic falling-out: rather, a growing silence. After all, the artist from Poggio Bustone had already, by the late Seventies, been looking beyond the horizon of that Italian melodic song that had been the cornerstone of his collaboration with Mogol: he was fascinated by new wave electronics, by the productions of Brian Eno and David Bowie, by new romantic, by the electro-pop that, in various forms, was all the rage across the Channel at the start of the decade. His move, in any case, would not simply amount to jumping on new trends: with the “white albums,” Lucio Battisti would once again prove capable of reworking different sources and styles with great originality, creating an unusual blend of pop song, the most hermetic poetry, electronic fascinations and a certain learned experimentalism. In short, it would bring to completion the decomposition of the Italian melodic song that had already begun a few years earlier.

“Yes. I see music the way I believe every job should be conceived. A way to renew yourself, to find new stimuli, so that it never becomes boring... – Battisti said in 1979 – I've already written four or five things and I realize I'm already somewhere else. I'm wary of people with very fixed ideas.” And further: “Everything is pushing me toward a total redefinition of my professional activity... I have to destroy the shabby, consumerist image they've pinned on me. I will never speak again, because an artist should communicate only through his work.”

A new frontier

Having closed the historic partnership with Mogol, Battisti decided to break definitively with the public, with fame, with the hit parade (and, in all likelihood, it was precisely these new ambitions of his that triggered the rupture with his longtime collaborator). So in 1982 out came “E già”. It's a watershed: wall-to-wall electronics, short tracks, stripped-down writing. The lyrics are credited to Velezia, a pseudonym for his wife, though over time voices attributing their authorship to Battisti himself have grown ever louder. The break with the past is stark.

It would be the prelude to a new, formidable partnership: the one with the Roman poet, writer and lyricist Pasquale Panella, a man in love with nonsense. A collaboration built on a method opposite to the one used with Mogol: lyrics first, music after. Mogol himself has recounted: “Lucio told me he didn't want the new songs to be compared to the ones we'd written together. But he'd also changed the way he wrote. Because with me he'd write the music first and I'd write the lyrics, whereas with Panella – he told me himself – he'd have the lyrics sent to him and then build the music on top”. He also added that Battisti had confided to him his intention to sing only “in English or in nonsense”. He chose the second path: elliptical, fragmented lyrics, far removed from the narrative linearity of the previous period.

The Battisti–Mogol duo had redefined the Italian song: a modern melodic structure, everyday language, an emotional introspection capable of becoming collective heritage. They had built an autonomous industrial model, founding their own publishing and record structures. Their split wasn't just the end of an artistic partnership, but the close of an entire era.

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02/04/2026