“I smiled so much / Inside this crying,” Levante sings from the Ariston stage in Sanremo, and there is something in the verses of “Vivo”, the song he brings to the competition at the Festival, that goes beyond his personal experience: experience with postpartum depression. The song was written based on Levante’s experience after the birth of her daughter Alma Futura: since then, as she said, she has to deal with a body that is “no longer yours”, with a new life that you have to know.

Perinatal depression is a mood disorder that can affect new mothers during pregnancy or up to a year after giving birth. We talk about the “postpartum period” but it’s actually a broader phenomenon. The result, however, is mood imbalance in the form of bouts of crying, insomnia, sadness, and even suffering. On the other hand, there is the joy of giving one’s life, and everything, as in the Levante passage, is inextricably linked. “I wrote this three weeks after giving birth”explained the singer-songwriter a Vanity Fair talking about the song, “I was at home in my sadness. I remember being in a dressing gown and having little time to write. What I say in Vivo is a wish, a wish list. I wanted to get out of my darkness.” “I needed to get back to writing and acting,” he said Grace“I felt stuck in a special role as a mother, but that wasn’t enough for me. I wanted to feel useful to myself.”

At the heart of the song there is hope for rebirth and return to oneself in a new form: “I want to give in to this hope / To believe all my life that / I live the way it turns out / I live badly, I live well / I live the way I like.” But above all, there is a breaking of silence at the level of the main narrative, a paradigm shift regarding the sweetened version of motherhood that the world continues to offer us. The Levante gesture is the seed that can encourage women who have a similar experience to speak up, seek help, and not feel alone. “It’s still talked about too superficially,” said the singer-songwriter. Espresso. “It’s still taboo, as if the guilt is more important than the pain.”