I'm in a Band With an Italian Drummer

Song infobox
Name = I'm in a Band With an Italian Drummer


Artist = Bruce Dickinson
Album = The Best of Bruce Dickinson, Disc 2
Released = September 25, 2001
track_no = 11
Recorded = 1996
Genre = Rock
Length = 3:52
Writer = Chris Dale
Label = Metal-Is
Producer = Jack Endino
Chart position =

I'm in a Band With an Italian Drummer is an ironic/spoof rock song by Bruce Dickinson, first issued as the B-side of his 1996 single "Back from the Edge" (only on its 7-inch vinyl format) off his solo album Skunkworks, and subsequently released on the second disc of the 2001 Best of Bruce Dickinson compilation. It was written by bassist Chris Dale, who was in Dickinson's short-lived backing band for that album, also named Skunkworks. The song's instrumentation features funny breaks with lots of deliberately off-beat electronic drum machine effects, each occurring immediately after the line "...and when he plays his drums it sounds like this". [The Best of Bruce Dickinson, CD 2, track 11.] The lyrics, which (unusually for Dickinson) are composed of rapped verses and sung choruses, are a very ironic portrait of the band's drummer Alessandro Elena, who is "really Italian" - as a line in the lyrics defines him - and feature most of the clichés commonly associated with the way Italians are perceived outside of Italy, in the "Italians Do It Better" style. [http://artists.letssingit.com/bruce-dickinson-lyrics-im-in-a-band-with-an-italian-drummer-v8b279g (including a translation of the spoken bit at the end).] The song's ending bit is spoken by the drummer himself in Sicilian dialect (starting with a line in heavily inflected, "Italianized" English and then going straight into dialect) and features him complaining about his complete lack of understanding of what Dickinson is singing, all spiced up with "colourful" Italian and Sicilian dialect expressions.

References