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Usually, describing with a modest point of view the committed and intense albums that many representatives of our songwriting scene offered us in the "seventies" is not particularly easy, as decrypting some lyrics turns out to be quite arduous and sometimes tedious, but at the same time fascinating. In this case, the good Claudio Lolli, one of the most outspoken singer-songwriters born in those heavy and confused years, offers us a language more vulgar and much clearer compared to his more famous friends and colleagues. This makes listening and interpreting his words easy and direct, allowing everything to flow swiftly.
The dignified and honorable career of the Bolognese Lolli began in 1972, thanks to the help of his "compagno di merende" (and drinking friend) Francesco Guccini, who rightly suggested him to EMI. With this reflective and shadowy author pearl, he pays homage with the title track to the theater play of the same name by Samuel Beckett and converts it in his own way, telling us about the anxiety of those who let life slip by, constantly a prisoner of a nerve-wracking waiting for something that never comes, or rather, those who "do not" live and toss their ambitions aside, never seizing the right moment to enjoy a moment of peace. The bitterness is evident in the last stanza: "Non ho mai agito, aspettando Godot, per tutti i miei giorni aspettando Godot, e ho incominciato a vivere forte, proprio andando incontro alla morte", and the awareness of a tormented non-sense of existence re-emerges also in "Il tempo dell’illusione".
The mood of the album is not the lightest; Lolli takes us mournfully on a journey through various ideological-existential paranoias, where songs like "L’isola verde" and "Angoscia metropolitana" highlight the vivid and dark reality of the urban monster, inside which one lives and survives forced and resigned, victims of a degradation more human than urban in which even "Giace morto sul selciato un bambino che faceva il muratore". In other tracks like "Quello che mi resta", "Quanto amore", and "Quando la morte avrà", the vivid sentiment is described with an aura of turmoil and hostility, in which remorses, endless waits, and a sensation of wasted time resurface, offering pieces of love contained in that suitcase everyone carries along.
The self-celebration and self-pity of two friends in front of a wine bottle reveal in "Quelli come noi" the intimacy of an entire generation of different individuals, solitary, nihilistic, shy, dreamers, ambitious, quiet, useless, and who in a swirl of mere and naive misanthropy "sing what they don’t have and what remains for them" (perhaps Mr. Rossi from Zocca, 9 years later, took inspiration from this for his "Siamo solo noi"). But social redemption tries to perk up by bringing up an old and small "Borghesia", not always fiercely criticizing it but denigrating it and highlighting its frustrations, its obsolete doctrines, and its ideologically reactionary limits, sometimes harshly opposing it to the more snubbed civilian mass. "Michel" is the childhood friend from France, an accomplice in pure friendship, which goes beyond the confrontation between Garibaldi and Napoleon and beyond the fake wars among lead soldiers. A complicity that culminates on the day of farewell of the cross-border "cousin", who returns to his homeland after his mother’s death, and which remains engraved in both their consciences.
On the cover is depicted the 5,000 lire banknote of the time (here shown half and the record sleeve opens to display it fully), where instead of Cristoforo Colombo's face, there's Lolli's resigned and depleted expression. One cannot deny the "Dylanian" musical inspiration, nor the "Guccinian" poetic one, but when all is said and done, with ease, simplicity, and professional interpretation, it emerges, without the forced use of drums and basses in every song, as one of the most interesting and valid artistic singer-songwriter creations of that period, deserving wide acclaim. Claudio Lolli thus paves the way for his subsequent works, touching in my opinion, such a high point only in 1976 with the album “Ho visto anche degli zingari felici”.
It's truly a shame that an artist of this caliber hasn't received the same consideration as others from his generation (sadly, very few of us give him the attention he deserves, to be blunt). Could it be because his consistency allowed him not to sell out too much? Qualitatively inferior? Poorly advertised? Let everyone draw their conclusions. The reality is that regardless of his reputation, he continues after 40 years to sing, write books, collaborate, promote socio-cultural initiatives, heightening it all with performances and appearances on stage, often for charity. And for those who appreciate him, this is enough to define him as a "singer-songwriter".
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