The Niro - Live performance | Davide Combusti | TEDxLecco

Performance and Gratitude

• A song is performed, with lyrics that include themes of time, existence, love, and loss, and the idea that humans are aware of their own mortality, which may be what sets them apart from animals (3s).
• The performance is followed by a speech, in which the artist thanks the organizers of the event, including Marco Menaballi and TEDxLecco, for the opportunity to perform and discover a world where relationships are important (4m0s).

Mortality and Connection

• The artist reflects on the idea that humans are aware of their own mortality, and that this awareness may be what sets them apart from animals, but also notes that animals are capable of love and emotions, which is what connects humans to them (4m49s).
• The artist mentions the psychologist Massimo Fagioli, who theorized that human traumas originate from after birth, and that these traumas can be resolved by working through them and returning to one's birth (5m44s).

Song: "La Nascita"

• The artist explains that they wrote a song, "La Nascita," which tells the story of a man's life from after death to before birth, inspired by the concept of Fagioli's theory and the film "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (6m15s).
• The artist performs another song, with lyrics that explore the themes of time, existence, love, and loss, and the idea that even though humans are aware of their own mortality, they can still find meaning and connection in life (6m40s).

The Singer-Songwriter

• The artist explains that they are a singer-songwriter who tends to write about their own emotions and experiences, and that their music is a way of communicating and connecting with others (10m49s).
• The artist mentions that they also have a passion for drawing, and that they have started to explore the intersection of music and cinema, writing songs for films and discovering that they can take stories and characters that are not their own and make them their own through their emotional filter (11m31s).

Film Project: The Musician's Crisis

• A director called to discuss a film project, where the main character is a famous musician who has become a solo artist after leaving his band due to greed, and is now in an existential crisis, unable to speak or play music (11m59s).
• The character is recognized by a caregiver in the story when he starts playing the piano, and she throws a walnut at him, which is supposed to bounce and create a rhythm for a song, but the walnut doesn't bounce, so they use a hazelnut instead (12m40s).
• The hazelnut bounces and creates a rhythm, inspiring the musician to write a song, which he completes in an hour and sends to the director, who then writes the film script (13m49s).
• The song, titled "The Mirror," is performed in English, with lyrics that include "Don't Look up Just Run Till I will be around" and "You Be The Sun" (14m0s).

Collaboration with Gary Lucas

• Another project involved interpreting songs that aren't the musician's own, such as when he was contacted by legendary American guitarist Gary Lucas, who discovered Jeff Buckley, a famous singer-songwriter known for his cover of "Alleluia" (17m17s).
• During the lockdown, the musician was contacted by director Paolo Genovese to play the role of a singer in crisis, in the film "Il primo giorno della mia vita," where he sings "Alleluia" a cappella in an auditorium (18m22s).

Film: "Il primo giorno della mia vita"

• The film tells the story of a character named Napoleone, played by Valerio Mastandrea, who is going through an identity crisis and helps the musician to overcome his own crisis and sing again (18m48s).
• The story begins with a personal anecdote about a moment on the metro, where someone was playing music, and it turned out to be the narrator himself, marking the first day of giving up on doing something in his life (19m18s).

Unreleased Jeff Buckley Songs

• The narrator was approached by Gary Lucas to create an album featuring unreleased songs by Jeff Buckley, which was a 28-year-long awaited project, and the narrator accepted after listening to the songs (19m41s).
• One of the unreleased songs, titled "In Cantina," particularly caught the narrator's attention, and it's a story about a man who feels at home when he's alone in his basement, but ultimately, it's his imagination that helps him transcend his surroundings (20m1s).

Song: "In Cantina"

• The song "In Cantina" is performed live, with lyrics that describe a sense of darkness and isolation, but also the comfort of being in one's own home, and the performance showcases the narrator's vocal range and emotional expression (21m15s).
• The song's themes of imagination and escapism are highlighted, suggesting that it's the imagination that can help people overcome difficult situations and find solace in their own homes (20m39s).