the portrayal of migraine in italian popular music

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The Portrayal of Migraine in ItalianPopular Music

We very much appreciated the elegant paper by Drs.Roberts and Vargas, “The portrayal of migraine in popularmusic: Observations and implications” – and the associatedpodcast at http://www.headachejournal.org/view/0/podcastsForHealthProf.html#vargas – concerning the popular por-trayal of migraine in popular music.1 The authors searchedfor songs with the word “migraine” in the title across inde-pendent online music sites.They also looked for the cognatefor “migraine” in Spanish, Italian, and German. We weresurprised about the fact that in 139 identified songs with theword“migraine” in the title, the authors were not able to findany Italian tracks. In fact, in the listed songs, few Spanish andGerman tracks were detected (3 for both languages). Fur-thermore,6 songs were originally in French instead of Italian(“la migraine” in 2 different versions, “qui vert chasser unemigraine” with 2 covers and “migraine infernale”).We thinkthat the online music sites probably confused Italian withFrench. To better elucidate the interest in Italian popularmusic regarding headache, we decide to reproduce the studylooking for the correct Italian cognate for “migraine.” Weutilized the same methods described in the paper (iTunes,Allmusic). We identified a total of 4 songs with the Italiancognate for“migraine” in the title,while in 31 songs, the termwas detected in the lyrics (see Table 1). Ten percent of thesongs were classified as hip-hop/rap, while the remainingwere classified as pop-rock. The artists were all male, 80%under the age of 40.

The frequency of citation of the term in song lyricsincreased over time (just 5 before 1995).

A negative connotation of headache was present in allthe lyrics. Migraine was often described as an obstacle/barrier for relationships and associated with a sense of

despair, loneliness, and melancholy. In 3 cases, it wasreferred to as a chronic, debilitating condition, and inanother 3 songs, analgesic drugs were listed. Interestingly,photophobia is described in one song. In another, a singercontemplates the origin of headaches.

Thus, we prove the presence of the cognate term formigraine in Italian popular songs. We think our researchcould help the authors in completing the original design ofthe study. We also confirm the negative connotation formigraine described by the American authors, which prob-ably reflects the current perception of headache in Westernsociety.

Table 1.—List of the Italian Songs With the Cognatefor “Migraine”

Artist Title

Bluvertigo “il mio mal di testa”Leandro Barsotti “mal di testa”Redska “mal di testa”Sergio Endrigo “mal di testa”Bluvertigo “niente per scontato”Zucchero “nice dice che”Fabrizio De Andrè “Maria Giuana”Negrita “gioia infinita”Vasco “siamo solo noi”Francesco Guccini “canzoni delle situazioni differenti”Giorgio Gaber “destra sinistra”Otto ohm “ la vita e che ci fai”Alex Britti “ mi piaci”Litfiba “regina di cuori”Francesco De Gregori “de gregori era morto”Gianluca Grignani “ chi se ne frega”Francesco Renga “affogo baby”Pacifico “senza te”Brusco “canzone fino all’alba”Amedeo Minghi ”alla leggera”Marracash “sabbie mobili”Madagaskà “nella mia testa”Gatto Panceri “l’amore va oltre”Que pequeno “pillole”J. Ax “quotidiane”Gem Boy “lo spettro del cervo volante”Zero Assoluto “per dimenticare”Elio e le Storie Tese “tenia”Riccardo Fogli “una stanza bianca”Paolo Vallesi “tutto va bene”Fabrizio Moro “gastrite”Dirotta su cuba “noi siamo importanti”Sergio Caputo “bimba se sapessi”Francesco Baccini “manager”883 “weekend”

Conflict of Interest: The authors report no conflict of interest.

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We agree that it would be worthwhile to educatepeople on recent advances in management and treatment ofmigraine, offering them a new portrayal of headache. Thiscould be a step forward in changing perceptions of thiscommon disease.

Bruno Colombo, MD; Dacia Dalla Libera, MDNeurology, San Raffaele Hospital, Milan, Italy

REFERENCE

1. Roberts DL, Vargas BB. The portrayal of migraine inpopular music: Observations and implications. Headache.2012;52:1164-1170.

844 May 2013