Io sono Francesco

Tricarico's autobiographical lyrics are based on an episode from his childhood, when a teacher made him write a composition about his father, whom Tricarico had lost at the age of three.^[1][2]

With this song Tricarico participated in the Festivalbar and was opening act in a series of Jovanotti's concerts.^[3]

The single stayed seven months on the Italian hit parade, being certified platinum.^[3] The song has been described as 'a decidedly non-light theme, approached with lyrics that are simple but not trivial, set to a catchy, immediate and apparently lighthearted melody'.^[4] Roberto De Angelis from Radio 105 noted: 'When you first hear it, it sounds like a nursery rhyme for kids with problems, but the tune and the lyrics soon get to you'.^[5]

Italian writer Vincenzo Rossini referred to "Io sono Francesco" as 'a surreal electronic little song, excessively cheerful, excessively sing-song, sung in an excessively crooked way — almost off-key, some would say — and in any case excessively "strange"', whose lyrics 'evoke a whole imaginary of childhood abuse: shock, humiliation, sense of inadequacy, anger, revenge, isolation'.^[6]