The weight that a single word can carry is almost unfair. Volare. One of the most well-known songs in recorded music history is somehow the result of four syllables with Italian origins and Latin roots. The majority of people are familiar with it. Fewer people have taken the time to consider its true meaning or why it appears to go deeper than language typically can.
In its most basic form, volare means “to fly.” That’s the neat, dictionary response. It simply appears as an infinitive verb, the kind you conjugate and move past, in travel phrase books and Italian grammar classes. Io volo. Tu voli. Noi voliamo. The birds soar. The helicopter is low in the air. The kite is carried by the wind. That’s not complicated at all. However, volare has always been restless, and language seldom remains inside the lines for very long.
The word is elastic. In the same way that English speakers use the word “fly” metaphorically, Italians use it to describe how time flies and how news spreads frighteningly quickly throughout a room before anyone can comprehend it. When will the tempo change? How quickly time passes. It’s the kind of expression that sounds almost too informal for what it describes: the peculiar, unstoppable way that years are condensed into fleeting moments. Beneath the lightness, there is a hint of melancholy.
The depth of volare’s roots is what makes it truly unique. More English words than most people know have their roots in the Latin verb volare. The source of volatility is the same thing that flies off, is uncontrollable, and changes suddenly. Volant, an adjective that means nimble, airborne, and quick, is also mostly archaic. Then there are volleys, which are objects that are thrown back and forth through the air during a battle or tennis match. Standing at a baseline, you wouldn’t believe that each volley is a tiny act of flying.
To be honest, it’s still difficult to distinguish Volare from the song, and perhaps that’s okay. Domenico Modugno sang “Nel blu, dipinto di blu” (a song about dreaming of flying into a blue-painted sky, arms open, completely unanchored from the ordinary world) on the Sanremo Music Festival stage in Italy in 1958. Volare was the only word that the chorus leaned heavily into. The festival was won by the song. It took home the inaugural Grammy for Record of the Year. Over the ensuing decades, it was covered numerous times; Dean Martin’s rendition became a lounge standard, while the Gipsy Kings transformed it into something wholly unique, electric, and percussive. Perhaps no Italian word other than pizza has found its way into more living rooms worldwide.
Modugno did not merely capture the verb. It was the emotion that the verb alludes to, the very human desire to be somewhere else, something different, and lighter than circumstances permit. There’s a feeling that Volare touched something that doesn’t translate precisely but somehow crosses every barrier it encounters when you watch how audiences react to that song in various eras, cultures, and decades.
For the same reason, contemporary companies have embraced the word. Volare is the name of ITA Airways’ loyalty program. With the assurance of those who know it does half the work for them, aviation companies disperse the word throughout branding materials. It doesn’t require an explanation. It is already loaded when it arrives.
The word also conveys the passage of things, which is intriguing and perhaps a little bittersweet. News travels quickly. Insults fly. Time goes by quickly. Punches fly. Volare contains the transient, the fast, and the things you can’t quite cling to. One verb can’t handle that much meaning. Nevertheless, it does so in a manner akin to grace.
