Antonello Venditti
Modena

Lugano Addio, Napule È, Rimini. Three of the most beautiful songs in Italian music history carry with them the names of three cities. But there's a fourth. It doesn't speak of the buildings, the streets, the landscapes, the historic center, or the sea, but of the end of a political party and with it, an ideal. An ideal that may not necessarily be shared, but nostalgically emotional when paired with the theme of the song we're talking about. Because Modena by Antonello Venditti is something more. It's indeed a political text against the backdrop of the Emilian city where the last meeting was held, the last desperate attempt at a now impossible reconciliation, but it's also pure harmony. It's a journey of 7 minutes and 49 seconds of combinations of notes and chords, in a fine arrangement, dictated by the piano of the inspired Roman singer-songwriter at that time, and by the sax of a certain Gato Barbieri, just a random musician. These two artists, in 1979, created something incredible, magical.

Modena highlights a concept of vital importance: as much as the textual value of a song is essential, without a good instrumental, everything loses value. And so, if you remove the melodic and harmonic intuition of this song, there remains a beautiful disillusioned text about the end of the Italian Communist Party, but it becomes something forgettable. The music, instead, elevates Venditti’s message to the stars, of a Venditti still committed, still angry, newly disenchanted. "La nostra vita è Coca Cola, fredda nella gola" is the final surrender to a rampant capitalism that has now, at the end of the seventies and the dawn of the following decade, subjugated all those principles that had dominated Venditti's music a few years prior.

But let's get back to the music. That groove so melancholic yet at the same time delicious makes you wish it never ends. And Gato's solos, between one verse and another and in the completely instrumental finale, seem to speak, sometimes more than the text itself. Venditti’s piano, already appreciable in another masterpiece such as Lo Stambecco Ferito, seems like the second partner in a musical embrace that leaves, in its conclusion, the taste of nostalgia.

It is truly a daunting task to describe in words what this piece evokes in me. The only alternative is to go and listen to it. It's sad how this artist is hated, especially due to his pop turn in the eighties. Now, Modena represents for me his best piece, and it is the one I would include in a top 10 of the greatest Italian songs of all time. But the Roman singer-songwriter has composed other wonders such as Giulia, Lilly, L'Amore Non Ha Padroni, Roma Capoccia, Maria Maddalena, Sora Rosa, Stai Con Me, and the already mentioned Lo Stambecco Ferito. In short, at least in the seventies, he was among the best Italian songwriters. And I assure you that rediscovering him could prove to be a surprising move.

Maybe starting right from Modena.