[2] Battisti was born in Poggio Bustone, a small town in the province of Rieti (northern Lazio), and moved with his family to Rome in 1950.

In Milan he found the support of the French talent scout Christine Leroux, who worked for the Ricordi music label and introduced Battisti to lyricist Giulio Rapetti, better known as Mogol.

In 1969, Battisti's song "Il paradiso" was covered by the group Amen Corner as "(If Paradise Is) Half as Nice", hitting the number-one spot on the UK singles chart.

Forming a strong and highly successful duo with lyricist Mogol, Battisti continued to issue solo albums on a regular basis throughout the 1970s.

In almost every case they reached the highest places in his country's charts, and are regarded as classics of Italian pop music ("musica leggera").

Amore e non-amore was eventually released in July 1971, but to preserve their creative freedom, Battisti and Mogol moved over to Numero Uno, one of Italy's first independent record labels, founded by them in 1969.

In the same year English band Love Affair| recorded the song "Wake Me I Am Dreaming", a cover of "Mi ritorni in mente".

Lucio Battisti, la batteria, il contrabbasso, eccetera, released in 1976 and including the hit "Ancora tu", was an even bigger success; many of the songs clearly showing the artist's interest in the then-emerging Disco sounds and production values that would have a large influence on his three subsequent albums.

In 1978 Battisti released Una donna per amico: recorded in London and produced by Geoff Westley, it was his best-selling LP.

Battisti's songs written with Mogol continue to be covered by international artists; a more recent example is Tanita Tikaram's "And I Think of You" ("E penso a te").

[citation needed] In some very rare occasions, though, he appeared as a TV guest in other countries such as France, Switzerland and Germany, and only after 1982 can his vow be considered completely fulfilled, with a perseverance similar to that of J. D. Salinger and other famous recluses.

Don Giovanni combined a return to classic "Battistian" melodies with lyrics which some felt were weird and often seemingly meaningless.

The following L'apparenza (1988), however, again contained rather impervious lyrics; its success was worse than the one had by Don Giovanni, in chart position as well as in sales volumes.

The declining sales were hardly a concern for Battisti: it was rumoured that in the 1990s he was earning 4–5 billion lire a year (approximately 3 million Euro in 2006) solely from author rights of his 1970s songs.

[5] In an interview, David Bowie claimed to consider Lucio Battisti his absolute favourite Italian artist and the greatest singer in the world along with Lou Reed.