Achille Barosi was 16 years old. An age that smells of the future, of parties, of friendships that seem eternal. But we all remember how that cursed New Year’s Eve ended at Le Constellation in Crans Montana, Switzerland. A fire transformed an evening of lightheartedness into a tragedy that we still can’t shake off today.
Achille and dozens of other boys were there to ring in the new year. They didn’t know it would be the last. From that moment, his name – and that of 40 other very young people – has become the symbol of a wounded generation. And next to his name appeared that of Achille Lauro, the artist he listened to and loved. An invisible thread united them.
That mother who sings on her son’s coffin
It all started at the Basilica of Sant’Ambrogio in Milan, on January 7, when hundreds of people crowded to give him their final farewell amid a surreal silence. Silence that was broken when, once the coffin came out of the Church, a song started playing: Head over heels by Achille Lauro, contained in the album Ordinary mortals.
That was Achille’s favorite song and the mother – surrounded by other relatives – found the strength to sing it while hugging her son’s coffin. A heartbreaking scene that crossed social media like a wave, leaving behind a trail of emotion, tears and shivers. In those notes there was everything: love, loss, disbelief.
The lyrics of the song seem to have been written on purpose: it talks about life as a flash, an inevitable impact to be overcome with courage. Outside the Basilica, those words were no longer just music. They were the naked truth. They were the story of a boy whose life was cut short too soon, just as he was fully enjoying his adolescence.
The echo on social media and the petition
The images of that mother singing one last time “together” with her son went around the country. In a few hours a sort of popular petition started on social media asking for this Head over heels would become an official tribute to be brought to the stage of the Sanremo Festival. Thousands of shares, comments, messages. Not to make the pain spectacular, but to transform it into collective memory.
A fitting tribute
And so it will be, as Carlo Conti confirmed in the press conference. It was initially thought to have Lauro sing Unconscious young peoplewith which he was a hit at the last Festival. But then the choice fell on Head over heels because it couldn’t be otherwise. A touching moment, but necessary to embrace our six boys who lost their lives in Crans Montana.
A way of saying that those kids are not just numbers, but stories. That Achille Barosi is not just a victim, but a son, a friend, an interrupted dream. And we already know that it will be a moment that will make us all cry on the sofa, bringing back memories of that funeral and that massacre even today without a reason. A way not to forget, not to forget them.
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