Groovin' to the Beat of Nonsense

There's a song from 1972 that sounds exactly like English but isn't. Not a single real word. Adriano Celentano, an Italian singer, wrote "Prisencolinensinainciusol" to mimic how American English sounds to non-speakers. The syllables hit right, the rhythm is there, the consonants land where you expect them to. Your brain keeps trying to parse meaning that doesn't exist.

I find this genuinely unsettling in the best way. It's like an auditory uncanny valley. You're certain you're about to understand something, and then you don't, and then you're certain again.

Benny Benassi remixed it sometime in the 2000s, layering that nonsense over a proper house beat. The original was already danceable, but the remix turns it into something you'd actually hear in a club. The gibberish works better than real lyrics would. There's nothing to think about, nothing to sing along to incorrectly. Just sound that feels like language.

What gets me is how deliberate Celentano was. He wasn't just making nonsense sounds. He studied the phonetic patterns, the cadence, where Americans put emphasis. He built something that passes every test except meaning. It's closer to a magic trick than a song.

The Benassi version keeps surfacing at parties, usually late enough that nobody questions why they're dancing to an incomprehensible Italian-American fever dream from fifty years ago. Which might be the point. Music doesn't need to mean anything. Sometimes the feeling is the meaning.