Claudio Lolli
Aspettando Godot

"The people I stopped on the street

can honestly testify

how much love I sought yesterday, before I hanged myself

yesterday, before I hanged myself"

Can life end at twenty-two? With Waiting for Godot, Claudio Lolli seems to write his own epitaph. At twenty-two, he records a work that appears to emerge from a slow maturation, through sufferings and growing awareness. Yet at that age, the young singer-songwriter must have looked more through the window of his room than at the actual miseries of life. The shadows that clutch Lolli thus grow in his Bologna, perhaps observing it from afar, through gray curtains. We could also imagine him turning every now and then towards the door of the room, resting the guitar or pen on a sheet of paper, waiting for Godot to come and take him away; it may sound strange, in fact, but this album, which looms like a tombstone, actually seems to contain the despair of someone searching for something, someone who wants, despite depression, to escape and live intensely. Moreover, in just four years, Lolli arrived at the happy gypsies, leaving behind the dark bundle of his early adult years. This boy thus shredded his own testament, when instead listening to the words, the guitar, one would swear they were facing someone who soon left.

This album, even more than the author's subsequent ones, boasts a spontaneity and cohesion that leave one astounded. Following Godot's path never leads to a dead end: with each listening, it is possible to delve even deeper into its labyrinth; any song on the album is a precious gift, more or less hidden, that, yellowed with time, does not lose its beauty in the slightest. Lolli's dark well even halts with the ironic invective of Bourgeoisie,

"Old petty bourgeoisie

old people of my home

however small you may be

the wind will one day sweep you away."

but then, after launching head-on against injustice, the singer-songwriter's train continues its descent into the desperate existences of his characters, living metaphors. The sweet arpeggio of Michel opens our eyes to lost years, never lived by us, yet experienced with the same melancholy, the same damned desire to burn whole springs and return to pick those now-wilted flowers that could have saved our lives. With The Green Island Lolli opens his lips to suicide, making such an act even more heartrending by juxtaposing it with the dreams of a distant life; that life that could be born on any land, far or near home, but is now impossible to reach: the path has turned in the opposite direction, the human mind increasingly embraces the system's cancer, adulthood mocks the naiveté (wisdom) of childhood. For our Claudio, material suicide is nothing but the explicit manifestation of another silent suicide, leaving no dead - he will talk about it the following year with The Jacket - the one everyone tacitly accepts every day, without raising their heads to the inner and surrounding misery. Continuing to live, defusing one's soul, then leads to the Time of Illusion versified by Lolli in the next song. A despair matured over the years, indeed, that the singer repeatedly expresses using the figure of the elderly, as if he had already grasped all the pains of existence, opened his palm and discovered a lump of mud.

I could analyze each song of Waiting for Godot individually, yet it would be redundant: the black sky hovering over the album is a wave that overwhelms; the wisest thing is not to escape, to look to the horizon hoping for light: wise is to close the eyes and drown in despair, perhaps as if it were an antidote. It would also be profoundly unfair, in conclusion, to judge this work solely by its lyrics; ever since I discovered Lolli, for instance, I have been struck by the unique tones of his singing. A high, often hoarse voice, which I wouldn't call impassive but rather exhausted, full of a despair that prevents raising the voice too much, that prevents crying or shouting. Often, listening to him sing over the arpeggios of his guitar, one senses the liturgy of a ghost. The guitar, I said, absolutely: Lolli's songwriting deserves to be remembered also for its musical taste. Sometimes sparse, sometimes accompanied by a violin or piano; geometric, melodic verses seeking their place within a methodical composition. Everything in Lolli seems designed to envelop the listener and penetrate them with a disenchanted look at life. A sour, tired gaze, though with still a thread of resentment. As far as I'm concerned, Waiting for Godot is one of the greatest masterpieces of Italian music.

"The shacks have launched their cry of pain

surrounding the city with big pincers of shame

But the sound of cars has already suffocated every remorse

a child who was once a bricklayer lies dead on the pavement."