Caterina Caselli was among the first to recognize the talent of the young Francesco Guccini. In 1967 she invited him to the television show Diamoci del tu, which she hosted with Giorgio Gaber: it was the television debut of the Maestrone, who on that occasion sang Auschwitz. Around the same time Caselli performed some of his songs, helping to make them known to the wider public: Dio è morto, made famous by the Nomadi, Per fare un uomo and other tracks from the album Diamoci del tu.
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The two performed together with Per fare un uomo at the 2012 Concert for Emilia, organized after the earthquake.
Yesterday, on the day of Guccini’s funeral, Caselli sent a letter to Qn dedicated to the lifelong artist friend
August 8, 2026
Dear Francesco,
I am thinking of you. It’s early morning and I feel that this is the day of parting. I will no longer see you hug in that very your way your guitar, with your back a little bent and your fingers loose sliding quickly over the strings to accompany you, to rhythmically support your beautiful songs. But what am I saying, songs: poems, sung stories, glimpses of life, with that irony and that genuine flavor, going to the core of the words. And not just songs: novels, the kind that grip you so much you don’t let go until the end.
I remember when you came to the house with Guido De Maria. It was 1967, I had had a bad accident in Calabria, thirty meters down from a bridge. I thought I was going to die, but I was lucky: I got away with a broken ankle, so a leg in a cast. You, with your kind and ironic face, brought me Sandrone, the mask of Modena, with his leg in a cast too. It was your way of lightly telling me: look, I’m here. Let’s lighten the mood.
Then, when I met Pierangelo Bertoli, I asked you for a preface for his first album. You wrote it immediately, without hesitation.
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You were young, long hair, high forehead, thick beard. You were reassuring, everything inspired wisdom, a gentle giant. For many young people you were already a master. You told me: “You know, they write to me and say they wish I were their father.” You were surprised. I have always loved you like a brother just a little older than me. Much more cultured than me, and it didn’t take much: I didn’t have great culture, but I had the dialect, a living language that my mother and grandmother passed on to me in proverbs and invented phrases, born from episodes of simple life but seasoned with the wisdom of those who lived it. Our dialect sharp, ironic, keen at catching the nuances of life: you knew how to express it just as we feel it. Your lyrics contain all this, without losing along the way the source from which you drew. We wrote Le biciclette bianche together in Bologna, at your house, your lyrics for the Dutch Provos and the music mine, not up to the lyrics, which indeed composing is not my talent. Neither of us was yet registered with SIAE.
You have always been curious, someone who went to the bottom of things. You have always been consistent with yourself. I regret not having come to see you lately how many times we said it, you and Raffaella, life partner, always close, whom I remember joyfully every time we met.
I remember the basket of fresh cherries eaten together, in your beautiful house in Pavana.
Today I won’t be physically there with you, but I will be close to Raffaella and Teresa, whom I know less. When they approach you for the last farewell, I will be behind them, and I will cry for you as I am doing now, while I sing softly to myself. Life and death remain the same.
Francesco, goodbye. My immortal friend.
Caterina
