Quarantaquattro gatti o della rimozione. La desemantizzazione del conflitto in una canzone per bambini

There are many linguistics studies on popular music, but they are not so many on children's pop- ular music. In this essay I analyse Quarataquattro gatti, an Italian children's song performed in 1968 at the “Zecchino d'oro”, the most important Italian tv show for children. The song became a success. It was the first time that political words featured in a children's song, but they appeared subtly and with an ideological rhetoric directed to adults. Quarantaquattro gatti talked about the political movements and the strikes occurring during those years, and it offered to the adult au- dience an alternative approach between the two sides fighting for and against reforms.