Alunni del Sole
Jenny e la bambola...

It is often thought that the musician, in telling a story within their song, is an adult, with their tales from the past narrated as if they belonged to distant and bygone times. Yet, it often happens that what is told simply belongs to the moment in which it is lived and the memory of it is so fresh that it still burns under the skin of feeling. Everything becomes a snapshot filled with memories, nostalgia, and sometimes regrets for what could have been done but wasn't, perhaps out of naivety, perhaps out of shyness, or perhaps out of the damn fear of growing up.

It's everyone's story, our teenage summers with hearts racing for a kiss, a whisper in the ear to ask that girl we liked so much if she appreciated our courtship and felt over the moon for a yes. Those moments when we held hands for hours, saying little to nothing, because at that age, there is little to say or do, living in total unawareness of that first infatuation, perhaps indicative of an entire future romantic life. 

In this romantic and sentimental atmosphere, where everything is a veiled yet indelible memory, in that magical aura that smells of the first kiss and reminds your skin of that first caress or brings to mind any evening lying on the grass counting shooting stars with your nose up, expressing unattainable desires, in the convergence of sweet sensations dictated by memories, lies this little-known Italian album from 1974.

When the two brothers Paolo and Bruno Morelli, piano and voice and guitars respectively, moved to Rome, they got in touch with an established band, joining it and sharing the choices made until then but also bringing their cultural and musical baggage. Thus, Gli alunni del Sole was born, who, despite a career sparked by a couple of massively successful pop songs, demonstrated their compositional skills from their first 45 rpm: in 1969 with "Concerto" they made it evident how the language of Italian pop, psychedelia, and the nascent progressive could be profitably united.

They tailored themselves a garment made of soft colors, sounds charged with minor tones, personal expression sweetly embedded in a nostalgic context and clean lyrics, yet without straying too far from the Neapolitan tradition which was, after all, their original school. The following years were spent among singles, LPs, various festivals, TV appearances, and various events, but by 1974, at their expressive peak, they made the most of their already demonstrated versatility, focusing on this concept balancing various feelings and aspects of love.

The work should be seen as a sort of filmstrip of the time, narrated in six segments, six photographic flashes whose intensity is dictated more by the emotional charge each carries within and that the music releases, rather than by the expressiveness of the tones. The first panorama is colorful, lively, and "Un manichino in vetrina", taking place at the station, is surrounded by the sounds of the train, the voices of passersby, the noise of thought itself which gently takes shape, imagining that girl, standing still like a mannequin, with her red suitcase and that multicolored doll in her hands, walking with him, hand in hand, in shy and perhaps somewhat awkward steps. And the same aspects are assumed by the music, watercolor-like, seemingly simple and played on the sparse crescendo of acoustic instruments, so that all the color and noise is blended into the silence and the black-and-white of a still vivid memory but destined to fade. And after the girl and her alter ego, the mannequin, another fantasy takes shape and "La bambola di cartone" that the girl was holding, becomes the journey of maturity, of growth, of a love yelled inside but never declared, of a symbolic embrace with those who did not have the courage to move and express their feeling. 

The memory takes shape, finally has a name. That name is branded, stamped, into the folds of the heart. It is indelible and determined, roaring inside but it will never come out again, delicately and emotionally, like that sound coming from afar and resounding in the mind because in his imaginary walks with Jenny "Those evenings by the sea... a small orchestra played from afar": the piano replays, the acoustic guitar marks time, each note is a memory, a wound from which oozes an oxymoronic melancholy joy, because the narrator, perhaps in a somewhat masochistic form, listens to "Jenny" telling of her distant love she would never see again because her journey has already begun. And, musically, things change here: the emotional tension rises. The light string pads and the guitar arpeggio, counterpointed by Borra's rolling bass, rise and rise until the electric explosion of Morelli's guitar solo.

The story then has a break, an interruption inserted for commercial reasons. "Un'altra poesia" is one of the band's historic hits, also presented at Canzonissima, a very catchy pop song that, although in a romantic and nostalgic theme and musically similar, does not tie to the main narrative, which instead resumes for the final "Canzoni d'amore" where everything dissolves, Jenny inevitably vanishes and leaves the memory of herself; and to idealize the detachment, the distance, the clear separation from the previous life is the river, representative of the passing time, the flow of memory, of a bank on this side and one on that, dragging away what was there before and is no longer now. And so vanishes the youthful love, but remains the image of "... I kissed her eyelashes ... we were happy ... summer was ending and I had to leave her ..." Everything is full of this melancholy, perhaps without remorse, perhaps without regrets because at the end of it all "... I will write, I will dedicate love songs to you ...".

An almost classical lyricism, a superior melodic taste, a natural pleasure for counterpoint, a great evocative and nostalgic capacity, there are many positive aspects of this album, which has nothing in common with the banal songs for which the band was known, but – if anything – it is more akin to an attempt at pop-progressive, assuming that such a thing can exist.

A few days ago Polo Morelli, founder, keyboardist, main composer of the band and somehow the true soul of this album, prematurely passed away and it is to him that I want to dedicate these lines which I have kept in a drawer for many, many years.

Sioulette

p.a.p.