Claudio Cecchetto
Gioca jouer

And it was that evening that Cecchetto told us we could be ourselves, totally, but also less so.

When the radio buzzed That’s All Right, Mama by Elvis Presley, on the evening of July 6, 1954, the story of rock and roll (more or less) began; the radio and TV broadcast in mid-February 1981 of Gioca jouer was equally epochal for Italy, in its popular music (pop, rock, and dance) and its customs (especially swimwear).

Cecchetto's Italy was everyone's Italy (even the other great long-haired figure of the time, Toto Cutugno, would treasure it). Everyone could be themselves, without masks, without pretense, expressing their true essence, just paying a little attention to the “difference between 'walking' and 'swimming'.”

In short, he authorized us to become ourselves with our everyday “sleeping” and “greeting” (not just on the weekend). Mockingly, it would tickle the “Superman” or the “macho,” comic book heroes that don't invest meanings, that don’t lift off from the earth (earth), that are what they appear to be. Thus, returned the veil to Maya. Knowing that she wasn’t a bee. And Maya, for her part, thanked him. Schopenhauer, meanwhile, turned in his grave only to calm down shortly after at the third “sleeping.”

You asked Claudio Simonetti for music like Larks' Tongues in Aspic Part One in 19/16; then you opted for something like Whatever You Want by Status Quo (mistakenly confused with Status Qui). Then you had to think of a more structured text. And the light was dazzling. “Bell” and “horn,” the most clarifying and enlivening choice ever made from a dictionary: Petrarch would have had his cat fossilized immediately.

“Gioco ergo sum,” “Impantana rei,” “Homo homini ludus”; you joked among the macaroni, Latin, cans, and the cat's litter box (Petrarch’s cat? #perhaps). You already saw the stacchetti where your soubrettes would dance insanely, like maenads, with flowing garments and peachy cheeks.

And instead of “sleep,” “kiss,” “ski,” initially, there was the sequence: “engulf, meriggiare, obfuscate, procrastinate, equivocate.” Your fervent mind leaped from one end to the other of the imagination, without return. Then you realized you needed to be substantial, so you inserted a “spray” and a “hitchhike.” Life is, in fact, made of simple gestures that we associate with more or less complicated words (like names of things, animals, or cities); putting it to music could have been the right path. And you replaced the singing with speaking: a spoken song, inspired not a little by the Bronx block parties. Then other words were needed, from which came “protest, boycott, confront” for the spitting. And in a jolt (or a regurgitation) came out even “disown, disobey, inactivate.” You widened your eyes. Your piece could now be everything.

Then a wing broke. The production declined the invitation to protest, refused the literary vocabulary, the embrace of irony; instead, they plunged headlong into everything that could give meaning to the animation of a tourist village, to the baby dancer that is in every average man. And here we arrived at “sleeping,” at “greeting” (which is certainly healthier), at “hair,” at “sneeze” (preferred to the more outdated “cough” or the cacophony of its onomatopoeias).

Minimalism tailored, stripped to the bone, freeze-dried. Analytical minimalism. Radical minimalism. Hyperrealistic minimalism. And what seemed like retreating from your boldest ideas opened the door to success. A success as an instant classic, a success as a summer hit, a success as an international group dance, then an evergreen success. Today producers sing Italy, you, with your piece, have helped make Italy. That effort remains from its origin. Inside that effort, text and music have either impoverished or just simplified... But you anticipated us; today the various Gabry and the various Ponte can only come in retrospect (what irony!).

A total success that still feeds on itself today and goes beyond: the Gioca jouer is a mandatory passage for every Italian, in an inclusive sense (ius soli, ius culturae). From there, Cecchetto can dedicate himself to his true vocation as a producer. An American dream that started from Ceggia. Like so many pigeons that, however, had to stop earlier. Let's be clear: I don't want to make apologies, offer lavish praise, or mock Claudio Cecchetto. I just want to ask: is simplicity something we must always conquer, or is banality something we must flee from at all costs? Where does one begin, and the other end?