Claudio Baglioni
Io Sono Qui

THE REVIEW

"Io sono qui" is the twelfth album by Claudio Baglioni. The recordings began on October 4, 1993, and ended on August 4, 1995. Shortly after, the record was finally released.

The album in question was the second in the 'blue' series, preceded by "Oltre" and followed in '99 by "Viaggiatore sulla coda del tempo". The term blue signifies that the artist in this trilogy drew inspiration from the sea, in a dream where he came from the waters. As in the other two works, the lyrics are more complex, not exceptional but with some excellent insights. The music is somewhat refined, the arrangements average. The typical Baglioni melody is practically absent.

"Io sono qui" is an intricate and complex album where the main thread is the present, between life and comedy, between reality and film. People are actors and spectators, people or characters. Masks or faces that act "in the only common dance of the good and evil of living". Precisely due to these themes, the structure of the work is divided into cinematic times, interspersed with pauses where Baglioni, accompanied only by the piano and sound effects, describes scenes from a film, indeed.

Excluding these "times", the album consists of 11 songs. The opening is the successful "IO SONO QUI", where current issues are already hinted at (all in provisional freedom...). It then continues with "LE VIE DEI COLORI", a piece that strongly recalls medieval music, where the artist is in search of an unspecified place and location, probably the path to happiness.

Then comes "REGINELLA", complete with an attack in Neapolitan, taking up the song by Bovio and Lama. An extremely complex love song, the little bird has indeed gone very far. Practically of similar complexity is "NUDO DI DONNA", melancholic and romantic at the same time, even if the result is very gloomy.

We arrive at "V.O.T." (read as 'voids'), a clear and unequivocal message against the television of that time and those programs that today are captained by Buona Domenica and Uomini e donne. Subsequently, we find "ACQUA NELL'ACQUA", written for the World Swimming Championships in Rome. The single had already been released prior to the album. Certainly one of the most beautiful pieces. As is "BOLERO", a very fast rhythm in a series of pressing rhymes. Here the theme is the performance, the appearance of each person on the stage that is life, between evil and good.

"FAMMI ANDAR VIA" is one of the most heart-wrenching pieces ever written by Baglioni, and it shows. The song manages to convey the melancholy and the desire to go elsewhere. The same melancholy, but in a much more faded manner, emerges from "MALE DI ME", where the restlessness of the desperate search for the right love is also encountered.

"L'ULTIMO OMINO" is the third last piece. Interesting is the metaphor of a video game character who fights to reach a goal, even though, at that point, the game will be over. It is followed by "TITOLI DI CODA", one of the songs to which Baglioni is most attached and which effectively closes the album, just like the end credits do in a movie.