# Volevo essere un duro

"Volevo essere un duro" (Italian pronunciation:; transl. "I wanted to be a tough guy") is a 2025 song by Italian singer-songwriter Lucio Corsi, co-written with Tommaso Ottomano and produced by Ottomano and Antonio Cupertino. It was released by Sugar Music on 12 February 2025.
The song competed in the Sanremo Music Festival 2025, finishing in second place and being awarded the Critics Prize. It was later chosen as the Italian entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2025, after the Sanremo winner Olly declined the opportunity to represent the country in the contest.

## Composition

The song, written by Corsi himself with Tommaso Ottomano, who co-produced it with Antonio Cupertino, unfolds as a reflection on personal and societal expectations regarding self-image versus bullying when he was a child. In an interview given on the occasion of the Sanremo 2025 Festival, Corsi described the meaning of his song, stating:
   "It talks about the idea that this world would like us to be infallible, solid as stones and perfect as flowers, without telling us that flowers hang by a thread. And then also about the fact that, often, it is also easy not to become what one dreamed of. Very few people can say that they have become what they dreamed of as children or what the world would have us be. Then, maybe sometimes it is not even the right path. We happen to dream of things that, in the end, are not so much better than what we are. If my song were an image, it would be one of those trees you climb as a child, or a slingshot."

## Critical reception

"Volevo essere un duro" received favorable reviews from Italian music critics.
Andrea Laffranchi of Corriere della Sera wrote that the song has the "delicacy of Ivan Graziani and the panache of glam rock", associating the lyrical narrative with a fairy tale. Gianni Sibilla of Rockol stated that the song "in essence is another ballad, but with an arrangement that between strings and guitars has a 70s flavor almost Elton John music style" whose lyrics "play with the stereotypes of machismo".
Alvise Salerno of All Music Italia wrote that although the song does not fully represent Corsi's songwriting career, it opens up to the general public thanks to its "melodic simplicity and vocal as well as textual immediacy". Filippo Ferrari of Rolling Stone Italia reported that the song is among the best productions of the singer-songwriter's career, finding the lyrics "full of images that make one think about life and what a mess it is to become an adult".

## Music video

The music video of "Volevo essere un duro", directed by Tommaso Ottomano, was released on 12 February 2025 via Corsi's YouTube channel. The video features actors Massimo Ceccherini, Leonardo Pieraccioni, Laura Locatelli, Alvise Cimarosti, and Mariia Zhizhkun. It contains numerous references to other works including the music videos of Black or White by Michael Jackson and Walk This Way by Aerosmith with Run DMC and the films The Exorcist, Back to the Future and Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny from which the initial scene linked to the song "Kickapoo" by the group of the same name resumes.

## Charts

Chart performance for "Volevo essere un duro" :
| Chart (2025) | Peak position |
| Italy (FIMI) | 3 |
| Italy Airplay (EarOne) | 6 |
| Switzerland (Schweizer Hitparade) | 35 |

## Certifications

Certifications for "Volevo essere un duro" :
| Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
| Italy (FIMI) | Gold | 100,000$^‡$ |
| $^‡$ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone. |||