Volare (song)
"Nel blu dipinto di blu" (English: In the Blue, Painted Blue), popularly known as "Volare" (To fly), is a song recorded by Italian singer-songwriter Domenico Modugno. Written by Franco Migliacci and Domenico Modugno, it was released as a single on 1 February 1958.
Winning the 8th Sanremo Music Festival, the song was chosen as the Italian entry to the Eurovision Song Contest in 1958, where it won third place out of ten songs in total. The combined sales of all the versions of the song exceed 22 million copies worldwide, making it one of the most popular Eurovision songs of all time and the most successful Sanremo Music Festival song ever.
It spent five non-consecutive weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 in August and September 1958 and was Billboard's number-one single for the year. Modugno's recording subsequently became the first Grammy winner for Record of the Year and Song of the Year in 1958.
The song was later translated in several languages and it was recorded by a wide range of performers, including Dean Martin, Al Martino, David Bowie, Gipsy Kings and Barry White.
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