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Think the best Italian designers only make chairs and luxury lamps? Put your drink down. The finest masterpiece of Italian “sound design” is a pop song ripped from a police cruiser. During Milan Design Week, Se Telefonando is the city’s unofficial soundtrack. It’s the tune drifting through showrooms and Fuorisalone parties. Back in 1966, the legendary Ennio Morricone was supposed to write a hit for Mina, the country’s most iconic voice. He had no ideas. Inspiration struck in Marseille: a police siren (that famous “di-do-di”). Besotted with those three notes, he built the entire architecture of the song around that urgent little motif. The result is a pop piece of staggering technical daring. The melody swells without pause, creating a vocal tension most singers can’t sustain. Mina isn’t most singers. She walks into the studio and, with unapologetic mastery, nails that otherworldly performance in a single take. This is how you spot real geniuses: they take the most annoying alarm on the street, package it in impeccable design, and sell it back to you as the chicest anthem of the Italian jet set. Direct access ▪️ Work: "Se Telefonando" ▪️ Artist: Mina & Ennio Morricone ▪️ Location: Italy (1966) ▪️ Listen to the track (link in bio)