Speed of a song about extremely clever Italian (8)
I believe the answer is:
alacrity
'speed' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'a song about extremely clever italian' is the wordplay.
'song' becomes 'lay' (lay is a kind of song).
'about' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'extremely clever italian' becomes 'crit' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'lay' going around 'crit' is 'lacrity'.
'a'+'lacrity'='ALACRITY'
'of' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for alacrity that I've seen before include "Quickness" , "Lively eagerness" , "Expedition" , "Liveliness and eagerness" , "Brisk and cheerful readiness" .)