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Those who saw him step onto the Ariston stage thought for a moment that Reinhold Messner had taken up singing.
If he had climbed it a few years later, such a hypothesis would not even have been considered. Before singing, in fact, he did not pronounce the famous mantra that the giant of Bressanone had been intoning for years before every high-altitude enterprise: 'ALTISIMA-PURISIMA-LEVISIMA'.
And in his past there were no Everest and Nanga Parbat, but long and healthy walks on the trails of his Trentino. Up there where you breathe the air and life is not empty, as the national Fornaciari would have sung.
At a certain point though... walk walk, breathe breathe, the Messner of the song was tired of walking. And he was almost out of breath from fatigue.
"We got tired, yes, we got tired of walking".
"On these black sands".
Then he descended to the seashore, where you also breathe the air (but indeed, of the sea) and life is not empty because you fill it by singing. And the sand isn't black, not even there. On the Riviera dei Fiori, precisely. At the Festivàl of Festivàls.
In a year, already extraordinary in itself. The first with pre-recorded tracks. The one in which Toto Cutugno won. The one in which Latte e Miele did not reach the final. The one with 'Contessa'. The one with 'Voglio l'erba voglio'.
To a Francesco Magni who dreamed of India smoking the grass from the King's garden, even though the King wasn't there because he had gone to Santa Fé for a coffee, the poet of Madonna di Campiglio responded with much wiser advice to the younger generations. And on a folk basis, he argued with impeccable clarity:
'Don't do drugs'
Not stopping at the fundamental assertion of his thesis but also specifying why you shouldn't do drugs. Which is the most important thing.
'And if you do drugs, and if you do drugs you die'
That is: do drugs if you want. But I'm telling you what you're getting into.
Among other things, it’s not that you only die. If it were only dying... The issue is that you die badly.
'And if you do drugs, and if you do drugs you drown'.
And you already imagine yourself inside a submarine where a leak has opened, with water now up to your throat and continuing to rise.
Not the yellow submarine of Beatles memory. Not colorful psychedelic fantasies. Lucy is not in the sky with diamonds, but drowned at the bottom of the sea. And under this sea there's no sun.
The warning was clear, the exhortation to choose life just as much. But most of the young people, who knows why, did not heed the wise advice. Perhaps they didn't even see him step onto the Ariston stage that evening. Who knows if they also went to Santa Fé for a coffee.
The jury didn't understand either: elimination without appeal. It didn't matter if those black sands, in the poet's intentions, should have made one think more of lead than opium.
For the record: Alberto Beltrami is still a DJ, writes music, and has composed - among other works - the soundtrack for the Vatican City Pavilion Expo 2015.
As far as I know, he never returned to Sanremo. But I think about him often. And when I do, they are always good thoughts.
I imagine him walking on his mountain paths, or jumping over the fence in an Olio Cuore advertisement, or at the table in one of those 80s ads all smiles (and TV songs), like Galletto Valle Spluga and similar. Or even, in one of those Diadora suits with geometric patterns, maybe blue or turquoise, or like the Italian National team uniform at Italia '90. The kind that came out on the weekend when Serie A played all on Sunday, and you waited for noon for tortellini, Maurizio Mosca, and the music of Guida al campionato. Yes, Alberto Beltrami has always made me think of a Diadora tracksuit.
Just as Battiato makes me think of a Persian rug, Gianni Bella of a pair of tricolor underwear, Zarrillo of a rose garden of blue roses.
While Reinhold Messner never thought about going to Sanremo. He who has the breath for it. And he hasn't yet tired of walking.
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