Alessandro “Gifter,” content writer for the “PlusBrothers Poz world” project, talks about singer-songwriter Alessandro Bono: how can you go from hatred to respect?

The 1990s

My name is Alex, and I’m telling the story of my past as a hater, back when Internet was not yet available in every home.

Hhow stupid we were back in 90s, even if general public didn’t realize it!

Teenagers laughing at other people’s failures — including when the failing one was a singer-songwriter who died very young, Alessandro Bono. I wonder if he will ever manage to forgive us.

Alessandro, a.k.a. Gifter

Those who already know the “PlusBrothers” project have always seen us side by side without asking too many questions about whether “Elettrona” or “Gifter” was writing; now, however, it’s time to explain that I — Gifter — mainly take care of the Poz World (fiction area).

I am a happily married gay man, passionate about singing and music, HIV-positive since 2013, but we are not here to talk about me because this space is dedicated to Alessandro Bono — who is not me.

The Bride: going back in time

Neither my husband nor I call ourselves “the bride.” I’m talking about a book that reminded me of a particular moment when I was 19. “La Sposa”, Italian translation for “The Bride” by Mauro Covacich, also available in e-book format for those who are interested – I doubt there’s an English translation though.

I won’t deny that I strongly disagree with many thoughts shared in this work, but one story in particular reminded me of past years when I was a hater — perhaps even worse than the online ones.

It was 1994 and, on the threshold of my 19th birthday, I was already complaining about how Sanremo Italian music Festival was declining with Aleandro Baldi and Andrea Bocelli’s victories.

“They’re mediocre and they won because they’re blind,” I used to say. My self-esteem was rock bottom, so it gratified me to lash out at those I considered weaker than myself.

At school I was “the nerd” studying at the conservatory. I had convinced myself I would have to die “healthy and a virgin” because I was attracted to men and terrified of AIDS — an infection that at the time offered no escape. And if targeting Baldi or Bocelli wasn’t enough, I behaved even more despicably toward another performance: that of Alessandro Bono.

Alessandro Bono? Who is that?

My name is Alessandro and “Bono” is a jargon to say that a man is handsome, sexy, hot; so, trust me. It’s my picture.

No, seriously: Alessandro Bono is a singer-songwriter I learned — too late — to appreciate, but only after mocking him when he performed at Sanremo chewing a gum and his show was not the best at all.

“So these are today’s singers,” I used to say. “Alessandro, where do you think you’re going like that? Smoke less and stop using drugs, for heaven’s sake.”

I had seen him a couple of years earlier, in 1992, together with Andrea Mingardi, without paying much attention to his song “Con un amico vicino,” (“together with a close friend”) which placed third among the newcomers. In the end, that name disappeared like so many others.

If the 1992 performance was overall mediocre, two years later it was even worse: “I hope he disappears,” my disrespectful bully mentality allowed no forgiveness.

That’s why the book “The Bride“, mentioned by my colleague Elettrona while we were discussing Alessandro Bono, intrigued me and I decided to read it — unaware that it would slap me in the face with how much of a bastard I had been at 19.

Covacich recounts that distant 1994 evening when he was watching Sanremo with his girlfriend and other people:

“Will he manage to sing it all?” says the host, reading my mind. The whole living room bursts into laughter.

Right from the start, the performance felt like an announced failure — I fully agreed with the author and his friends.

[…] It’s especially the voice that doesn’t work, it sounds like that of an amateur. If he’s really a champion, he should know that you don’t improvise. He should have worked on it for a long time — diaphragm, vocal cords, stage presence. It’s not just about hitting wrong notes; he should have practiced […] Everyone can sing in the shower, but performing in a theater during a live TV broadcast is another story. Criticizing this guy makes me feel good…

Diaphragm! Vocal cords! Practice!

Exactly. Even though I stopped studying music, exercises accompany me daily. I love singing and, if I don’t want to lose technique, I have to keep training — even though I have no intention of performing in public. Singing for others would only take time away from activities I prefer to focus on, and it would expose me to haters both online and offline. Covacich explains the phenomenon perfectly.

“Criticizing this guy makes me feel good,” he says. That’s the point. That’s the reality: punishing with hostile words someone we consider inferior gives us the illusion of hiding our own failures for a moment. And when you’re a teenager, you behave like that very often.

In hindsight, I try to forgive myself, and Covacich was probably about my age.

Indeed, he reproaches himself for not understanding what Alessandro Bono was trying to communicate to the audience:

“The day will come when you will be / with a bottom as big as a whale / I will love you as I do now / you who have a mermaid’s body… / Or maybe not! I don’t know!” He gasped, swallowing constantly.

“Oh my God, look — chewing gum!” shouted the host. “He’s singing with chewing gum!”

And everyone burst out laughing. What a wonderful evening, laughing ourselves silly at that clumsy guy. He really does have gum in his mouth; I’m sorry I didn’t notice it myself — even back then I was known as a very observant guy, someone who noticed the smallest detail. And yet back there, in that other geological era, I’m too dazzled by the shining iridescence of his failure to catch such a detail. It all seems so instructive to me. I see the moral lesson, not the lost look. His eyes wander among the front rows searching for a friend or a relative, but I don’t see what they see. It’s easy — it would be enough to observe them with a minimum of attention — and yet I can’t. I press him: how can you not know whether you will love her forever or not? How can you not know whether that day will come? Don’t you feel confidence in the future irrigating your brain?

“His eyes search for a relative or friend in the front row.” Alessandro was afraid he wouldn’t make it, and now, when I rewatch that performance on YouTube, I see myself as a guy playing piano or singing for someone, especially during exams.

I always needed a reassuring look, even when there was no real reason to fear something going wrong.

What did Alessandro Bono want to tell us with that song? Sixteenth out of twenty — frankly, I would have given him last place. Covacich called it “quite a flop.” I was far less indulgent: in my view, Bono shouldn’t have gone to Sanremo at all.

Forgive me, if you can

In fact, someone much more authoritative had advised him not to sing at the Festival: his doctors. But we only learned that information two months after Sanremo. Alessandro Bono died on May 15, 1994, in Milan, before even turning 30. AIDS.

There it was again — the infection that terrified me and kept me from approaching sexual experiences. What off-key singer, what failure — Alessandro was dying, and with that song he was trying to share his sensations with all of us.

In hindsight, I think Bono was better than me. If he, with full-blown AIDS, had the courage to appear at Sanremo come what may, I spent years denying myself experiences out of fear. And when, twenty years later, HIV happened to me because of an unsuccessful relationship, I shut myself away until I found someone more stubborn than me — and in the end, little by little, I even married him.

“The answer, my love, is hidden in time.” You were right, Bono. And fortunately there were no social networks back then — otherwise they would have torn you apart even more than we idiotic teenagers, who thought we were perfection, already did.

“Stop using drugs,” I used to say to you — and you had already quit long before, focusing on music. Too late, and too early: because if your virus had left you positive without making you sick, you would still be here.

I even tried singing your song with my own voice. I looked for the instrumental track but didn’t record it, so only my husband, Elettrona, and my HIV can say whether I did it well — OR MAYBE NOT.

I can already hear your virus echoing mine: “I don’t know!”

Alessandro me, Alessandro you — both HIV-positive — and trying one of your songs made me feel as if you had personally handed me the microphone. I hope I was worthy of it.

In any case, forgive me for not understanding, for being one of your most relentless haters — until years after you left this world, when I finally had the chance to hear your songs and understand them better.

“Dentro l’anima”, Inside the Soul

Alessandro Bono was born in 1964 and died in 1994.

In May 2024, on the 30th anniversary of his death, Sony Music released a commemorative album titled Dentro l’anima (“Inside the Soul”). Finally, after years in which his songs seemed to have disappeared from circulation, someone decided to republish his greatest hits in digital and physical formats.

Other songs by him are available in Alessandro Bono SoundCloud archive.