Claudio Lolli
Aspettando Godot

In Italy, there are perhaps two of the most shocking and controversial debuts ever witnessed or heard. One is cinematic: Marco Bellocchio's "I pugni in tasca" (the film that, in the '60s, shattered the ideology of the bourgeois family), and the other is "Aspettando Godot" by Claudio Lolli which – just a heads up – if you're even a bit depressed or prone to melancholy, skip it, or you’ll end up sprawled on the asphalt after flying out the fourth floor window. A chilling debut, dramatic in every single second of its 49-minute runtime, desperate, with no way out, in which pain triumphs above all and nothing can defeat it: except dying (perhaps, because what’s beyond is unknown to all). In fact, even faith doesn't comfort Lolli, who in a memorable line tells us: "e ti appagherai del senso che ti darà una religione, sarà giunto anche per te il tempo dell'illusione".

Lolli, an Italian and Latin teacher at a high school in the Bologna area, made his debut at the age of 22, before he even became a teacher. He was introduced to EMI by his friend Guccini, and indeed the two are musically very similar. But their social backgrounds differ: Guccini is a mountain man who came from the provinces to the city of Bologna, while Lolli comes from a Petit-bourgeois family from the capital of Emilia-Romagna. And, this social background would be fundamental to Lolli's musical, political, and identity choices. Additionally, the problems with his father, which he often put to music, with varying fortune. Now, Lolli's debut (which, in my opinion, is not his best album, because "Ho visto anche degli zingari felici" is two or three notches above—also musically, more eclectic than this one, which is rather bare in sound and rhythms, often just a backdrop to the rather elaborate lyrics) is, as mentioned, an extremely desperate album. And, mind you, our hero was only 22. What he harbored inside is a mystery, but certainly anger, and invectives, he had them in abundance: that said, it’s a great album, not perfect, but we could use more like it.

From the public to the private, the record is one of the finest examples of melancholic lyricism ever produced in Italy. Guccini, by comparison, was a buddy (which is true, actually, in real life). The title track is Beckett's Godot, meticulously detailed in every nuance, but, and this is the leitmotif of the whole work, death reigns supreme. The protagonist of the song is a man who waited in vain all his life for something to arrive, until, old and exhausted, he realized: "ho cominciato a vivere forte proprio andando incontro alla morte". A relentlessly looping, stubbornly hypnotic guitar riff frames the debut of the bold Lolli, because writing things like this, even at the start of the '70s (the album is from 1972), took some guts. There’s only one short, almost humorous moment, dedicated to the late wife: "Sono andato in pensione dieci anni fa, ed ho perso la moglie acquistando in età".

The famous "Borghesia", a scathing diatribe against the self-righteous and the bourgeois, is actually one of the weakest tracks on the album. Heard in 1972, its impact would have certainly been greater than today, but by 2025 it’s a song that has aged badly and feels out of step with the times (also because those who once fought the bourgeoisie have themselves become bourgeois), yet the sharp, fierce irony is still like a flash tearing the night and still works. Even though the ensuing, delicate "Michel", with its childhood memories and a friendship broken at its peak, is perhaps the best track on the album. Devastating on an emotional level, yet incredibly delicate. It’s the Lolli you wouldn’t expect, where the drama of the situation (the two are separated as Michel's mother suddenly dies) is interspersed with lines of absolute childlike-adolescent purity:

"Ti ricordi, Michel di come a me dispiaceva
Quando parlavi sempre di ragazze?
E delle voglie che avevi con due occhi un po' sottili che non conoscevo più"

Ti ricordi, Michel di quando i mei capelli corti, ti davano fastidio e dicevi
Se non la piantavo di fare il bambino tu con me non ci saresti uscito più
Ti ricordi, Michel il giorno che facemmo a pugni tornando a casa dalla scuola
Con la cartella appogiata a una colonna a due passi dal paltò"

And if it is perhaps legitimate to dream of an ideal world, "L'isola verde", the song that closes side B, "Il tempo dell'illusione", is the most desperate. Because the milestones in each of our lives, in the end, are moments of futility that nobody will remember, and nobody will sing of (or more simply, nobody will care about). Nothing, absolutely nothing, will produce smiles or even the slightest cheerfulness (the passage about the relative is deadly).

"Quando l'ombra di una donna leggerà nel tuo viso la paura
e il suo corpo ti dirà che è notte, il suo sorriso che è mattina
quando la vedrai sfiorire come un albero che muore
sarà giunto anche per te il tempo dell'amore"

"Quando il sonno resterà il solo amico che ti salva una giornata
e vedrai fuggire via dalla tua casa i resti della gioventù
e arriverai fino a sperare che un tuo parente muoia
sarà giunto anche per te il tempo della noia"

"Quando i vetri di una stanza resteranno le tue sole passegiate
e i figli e i nipoti rideranno delle tue guance scavate
e per scherzo giurerai di sentirti proprio forte
sarà giunto anche per te il tempo della morte"

Side B is even more desperate, but the rhythm changes and, in addition to guitar and shy violin, some songs also see the entry of drums and bass. A little more rhythm then, but truckloads of sadness. Like the, alas, very topical, "Angoscia metropolitana", which would become a kind of cult of a certain leftist music scene (and Lolli was, without a doubt, completely that) targeting the sorrow of cities ravaged by antennas, cranes, building sites, and ongoing construction. Good thing he didn’t live to see what cities are like today: if poor Lolli were still alive and came to visit Milan, "Angoscia metropolitana" wouldn’t cut it; he’d probably throw himself under the metro (terrible joke, pardon). Still, it’s a beautiful song, all jokes aside, and perhaps represents him best. Because, once the public subject is done, here he delves into the personal.

One, the last, closing the album, is dedicated to his father and is called, brace yourselves, "Quando la morte avrà". But no, don’t worry, he’s not wishing death upon his parent; it’s a song about a complicated relationship with his father, the lack of affection, the idea that maybe, just maybe, that affection could come—but too late, or more likely, never. Lolli would be satisfied with just that caress he never received. Incredibly delicate, it brings tears. Our hero, who appears on the cover in the guise of what should be Christopher Columbus (there are no official portraits of Columbus), seems a navigator in search of his own unknown land, struggling with missing affections, painful moments of reflection, and melancholies typical of particularly intelligent men (for, as is well known, fools never question anything).

A love that will not return forms the basis of "Quello che mi resta" (never, ever listen to this right after a breakup, the risk of suicide is truly sky-high) and "Quanto amore", a man and his overwhelming ambition to love everything on earth, animate and inanimate, always and no matter what, to love above all things. A good man, who spent his whole life trying to be "better". Before hanging himself. Precisely.