X Factor, eroCaddeo: "Thank you, Professor Zedda, you made me love writing."

It was January 19, 2010, when the boy returned from school to find his house in disarray. His sister was screaming, his mother was on the floor, screaming. His father, Giorgio, 43, with whom he had been wrestling on the couch the day before, was dead. He was hit in the head by the tailgate of the truck he was transporting gravel on. It was his first day back at work, after a long layoff. Damiano wrote an essay about it and won the competition.

Music was already part of his life, but writing was a revolution for him. "He realized that lining up thoughts and words freed him from suffering, but above all, it helped him express his feelings. I often meet him and he tells me: 'Professor, it all started with that essay,'" says Professor Zedda, 74, now retired. "I owe her so much," says Damiano.

Today, teaming up with Achille Lauro, he's a fully-fledged singer-songwriter: "I write when I need to." He never forgets his past, as per the reminder he wrote at work—as a clerk in a housewares store—after his first successful audition. Between pots and pans, he wrote: "Remember where you come from." That's why he'd like to perform Luigi Tenco's "Vedrai Vedrai. " "Tenco talks to the mother who raised him alone, right? You'll see, one day things will get better," he sang. "And I hope that day is coming, Mom."