Track 4:
Cuccurucucù (Remastered) "Cuccurucucù Paloma, ahiahiahiahia sang" these are the first legendary lines/chorus of Cuccurucucù, the fourth track of the album. But what does Cuccuricucù Paloma mean? Well, after some research, it turns out to be a clear reference to a song by the Mexican singer-songwriter Tomas Méndez, which Battiato uses because "Sicily from my childhood is very close to both Spanish and South American traditions," so one could perhaps erroneously say that he associates these surreal words with his Sicily. It would be nice if it were really so.
The first verse already offers some exceptional insights: "The serenades at the teacher training institute during gym or religion class," as a student of the training institute (now Human Sciences), I can’t help but be thrilled by this line, especially because he later takes gym and religion as the times for serenades, which have always been the lightest and freest hours of the week. Personally, my heart opens a little, but let's move on. "For Carnival, I played on floats in costume," this line comes from Battiato's youth experience when he played on a float during the Acireale carnival, earning 13,000 lire, and when he returned home, he found his father furious. "I already had the moon and Uranus in Leo," we can start by saying that in this line Battiato is not referring to himself since he was born under the sign of Aries, and he surely made it up for rhyme purposes (with "during gym and religion class"). "The sea in the drawer, the thousand blue bubbles, since you left, I no longer exist" in one fell swoop he cites Milva and Mina, and immediately after, he references Nicola DiBari with "The world is gray, the world is blue"...every time you hear these lines, you go crazy. After the chorus of Cuccurucucù Paloma, Battiato sings "The dire wrath of Afghan refugees who moved from the border to Iran, sing to me, oh goddess of American Indians, the erotic deeds of Squaw Pelle di Luna"; all this is a huge citation from the Iliad adapted to a context where Afghan refugees move to Iran and then unexpectedly shift to American Indians and Squaw (which means woman) Pelle di Luna. "The fountain pens with blue ink, the electric razor I don’t use anymore," perhaps the most cryptic and interpretable lines of the bunch, but I will try to offer my hypothesis, connecting a bit to Bandiera bianca: Battiato compares the past to the present, taking the fountain pen as a model of past times and the electric razor as an example of the present he no longer intends to use. It's an interpretation from mental illness...but it's my idea.
After hearing the chorus for the third time, we reach the most citation-rich moment not only of the song but of the entire album: "Lady Madonna," namely the eponymous song by the Beatles, "I can try with a little help from my friends" which cites With a little
