1964 Italy: Gigliola Cinquetti - Non ho l'età (Place 1 at Eurovision Song Contest in Copenhagen)

Details

Description

Performed by: Gigliola Cinquetti
Music by: Nicola Salerno
Lyrics by: Mario Panzeri
Conductor: Gianfranco Monaldi
Language: Italian
Placing: 1st (49 points)
Other versions: English, French, German, Spanish, Japanese


"Non ho l'età (per amarti)", Italian for "I'm not old enough (to love you)"), sometimes also given as "Non ho l'età per amarti", was the winning song in the Eurovision Song Contest 1964 held in Copenhagen. It was performed in Italian by Gigliola Cinquetti representing Italy. Like all previous Italian Eurovision entries, the song had also won that year's Sanremo Music Festival. Cinquetti was sixteen years old at the time, making her the second-youngest Eurovision winner in history after Belgium's Sandra Kim who claimed she was fifteen when she won the contest with "J'aime la vie" in Bergen in 1986 - although it was later revealed that, in fact, Kim was only thirteen.

The song was performed twelfth on the night, following Portugal's António Calvário with "Oração" and preceding Yugoslavia's Sabahudin Kurt with "Život je sklopio krug". By the close of voting, it had received 49 points, placing it first in a field of 16.

"Non ho l'età" became a considerable commercial success for Cinquetti, in Italy, the rest of Europe, Scandinavia and other countries worldwide; she also recorded the song in English ("This is My Prayer"), Spanish ("No Tengo Edad"), French ("Je suis à toi"), German ("Luna nel blu"), and Japanese ("Yumemiru Omoi"). The song has since been recorded by a wide range of artists in other languages, for example, in Icelandic as "Heyr mína bæn" by Ellý Vilhjálms. Lili Ivanova, a famous Bulgarian singer, and Hong Kong singer Rebecca Pan, covered the song in 1964. Belarusian singer Wiesława Drojecka covered the song in Polish ("Nie wolno mi"). Anneli Sari made a Finnish cover ("Liian nuori rakkauteen"). Sandra Reemer recorded the song in Dutch ("Als jij maar wacht").

The song was followed as Contest winner in 1965 by France Gall singing "Poupée de cire, poupée de son" for Luxembourg.

It was followed as Italian representative at the 1965 Contest by Bobby Solo with "Se piangi, se ridi".

Cinquetti returned to perform at the Contest in 1974, when she finished second with "Sì" after ABBA's "Waterloo". In 1991, she co-hosted the Contest with Toto Cutugno when it was held in Rome. Cinquetti was proved not to be a UK 'one-hit-wonder' when an English recording of her 1974 Eurovision entry (titled "Go") reached #8 in the UK chart.

One of her other songs, "Alle Porte del Sole" (released in 1973), was re-recorded in English (as "Door of the Sun") and Italian by Al Martino, two years after its initial release, and reached No. 17 on Billboard's Hot 100 in the United States. Cinquetti's own English version of the song was released as a single by CBS Records in August 1974, with her original 1973 Italian version on the B-side.

Cinquetti went on to co-host the Eurovision Song Contest 1991 with Toto Cutugno, who had brought the event to Italy with his victory in Zagreb the previous year – the country's first win in the contest since her own twenty-six years earlier.

In the 1990s she became a professional journalist and TV presenter, and in 1991 she co-hosted the ESC which was held in Rome.

Lyrics:

Non ho l'età
Non ho l'età
Non ho l'età per amarti
Non ho l'età per uscire sola con te

E non avrei
Non avrei nulla da dirti
Perché tu sai molte più cose di me

Lascia che io viva un amore romantico
Nell'attesa che venga quel giorno
Ma ora no

Non ho l'età
Non ho l'età per amarti
Non ho l'età per uscire sola con te

Se tu vorrai
Se tu vorrai aspettarmi
Quel giorno avrai tutto il mio amore per te

Lascia che io viva un amore romantico
Nell'attesa che venga quel giorno
Ma ora no

Non ho l'età
Non ho l'età per amarti
Non ho l'età per uscire sola con te

Se tu vorrai
Se tu vorrai aspettarmi
Quel giorno avrai tutto il mio amore per te

English translation:

I'm not old enough
I'm not old enough
I'm not old enough to love you
I'm not old enough to go out alone with you

And I wouldn't have
I wouldn't have anything to say
Because you know many more things than me

Let me live a romantic love
While I'm waiting for that day to come
But not now

I'm not old enough
I'm not old enough to love you
I'm not old enough to go out alone with you

If you want
If you want to wait for me
Some day all my love will be for you

Let me live a romantic love
While I'm waiting for that day to come
But not now

I'm not old enough
I'm not old enough to love you
I'm not old enough to go out alone with you

If you want
If you want to wait for me
Some day all my love will be for you