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Rating: Sanremo Festival 1987 on Rai1: the talented host of the moment introduces the "big" Patty Pravo... "who will perform 'Pigramente signora,' music and lyrics by Patty Pravo herself!" Clap clap and there she comes, showy and flamboyant as always, the "background" track starts but after the first two lines I was already startled, just a few more lines and I knew for sure, the fraud was singing in Italian nothing less than "To The Morning" by Dan Fogelberg, the chords and melody are exactly the same!
"She's crazy!"... I think, and I feel like doing something the next day, calling, sending a letter with a tape... there's no need. Two days later, I read a snippet in Repubblica on the page dedicated to the Festival stating the formal complaint sent by the Daniel Fogelberg Italian Fan Club with supporting sound material! I am proud because Gerry, head of the aforementioned Fan Club and filer of the complaint, owes me the discovery of this artist and (may his soul rest in peace) never failed to remind me of it every time we met... The plagiarism is proven, they manage to keep everything rather low-key in the media (no Tapiri as is usual nowadays in such cases) but the exposed Patty loses her just-signed contract with the Italian Virgin and it will take her a few years to climb back up and sign with Fonit Cetra. Pigramente signora disappears completely, or at least I never had the chance to hear it again from that moment on, but maybe, besides it being appropriate for the "sophisticated" (in every sense) Patty Pravo, its further circulation of such proven cowardice is prohibited by law.
But who the hell is this Dan Fogelberg? He is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, and singer from Illinois. A "mountain man" who, like many others, moved to Los Angeles in the mid-seventies to break into the right circle but as soon as success arrived, thought it best to escape from that madhouse and settle in Colorado where he still lives. From there, with calmness, serenity, simplicity, and humility, he has provided us with a treasure trove of works among which this, in the plebiscitary opinion of all who love him, is the brightest.
"The Age of Innocence" was released in 1981 as a double LP, seventeen pure songwriter songs, 100% made in the USA, impeccable arrangements with almost all instruments played by Fogelberg, but when he asks friends for a hand, they're called Joni Mitchell, Michael Brecker, Glenn Frey, Don Alias... Plenty of acoustic guitars and pianos, slightly sweetened atmospheres, definitely rural, forgo the seekers of stress and metropolitan malaise. It celebrates life, friendship, love, family, especially the most obvious but most definitive regret that captures each of our lives: the loss, irreplaceable, invaluable, predictable yet cruel, sought after, and then cursed... of innocence.
The most romantic and sensitive risk teary eyes when listening, with the lyrics at hand, to the best song I know dedicated to a parent: Fogelberg's father was a band leader in his town and in Leader Of The Band he thanks him for teaching him to love music and "letting him go when it was my time to go."
Allow me to use the remaining space, instead of describing the many other pearls of the album, with the personal and, I hope, decent translation of the most precious of these, entitled Same Old Lang Syne:
I met my old lover at the grocery store / The snow was falling Christmas Eve / I stole behind her in the frozen foods / And I touched her on
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Nexus (06:04)
Across the vein of night
There cuts a path of searing light
Burning like a beacon
On the edges of our sight
At the point of total darkness
And the lights divine divide
A soul can let its shadow stretch
And land on either side --
either side.
And balanced on the precipice
The moment must reveal
Naked in the face of time
Our race within the wheel
As we hang beneath the heavens
And we hover over hell
Our hearts become the instruments
We learn to play so well.
Wealthy the spirit that knows its
own flight
Stealthy the hunter who slays
his own fright
Blessed the traveler who journeys
the length of the light.
Outside the pull of gravity
Beyond the spectral veil
Within our careful reasoning
We search to no avail
For the constant in the chaos
For the fulcrum in the void
Following a destiny
Our steps cannot avoid.
Across the vein of night
There cuts a path of searing light
Burning like a beacon
On the edges of our sight
At the point of total darkness
And the lights divine divide
A soul can let its shadow
Stretch and land on either side.
Wealthy the spirit that knows its
own flight
Stealthy the hunter who slays
his own fright
Blessed the traveler who journeys
the length of the light.
In a spiral never-ending
Are we drawn towards the source
Spinning at the mercy of an
unrelenting force
So we stare into the emptiness
and fall beneath the weight
Circling the Nexus in a
fevered dance with fate --
Wealthy the spirit that knows its
own flight
Stealthy the hunter who slays
his own fright
Blessed the traveler who journeys
the length of the light.
02 The Innocent Age (04:18)
Capture the moment, carry the day
Stay with the chase as long as you may
Follow the dreamer, the fool and the sage
Back to the days of the innocent age
Storybook endings never appear
They're just someone's way of leading us here
Waiting for wisdom to open the cage
We forged in the fires of the innocent age
(Chorus)
Back at the start it was easy to see
No one to own to, nowhere to be
Deep in the heartlands a sad memory calls to me (calls to me)
Fretful horizons, worrisome skies
Tearful misgivings burning your eyes
Yearnings unanswered, reckon the wage you pay
To recapture the innocent age
(Chorus)
Fretful horizons, worrisome skies
Tearful misgivings burning your eyes
Yearnings unanswered, reckon the wage you
Pay to recapture the innocent age
03 The Sand and the Foam (04:21)
Dawn...like an angel
Lights on the step
Muting the morning she heralds
Dew on the grass
Like the tears the night wept
Gone long before
The day wears old.
Times stills the singing
A child holds so dear
And I'm just beginning to hear
Gone are the pathways
The child followed home
Gone, like the sand and the foam.
Pressed in the pages
Of some aging text
Lies an old lily, crumbling
Marking a moment
Of childish respects
Long since betrayed and forgotten.
Times stills the singing
A child holds so dear
And I'm just beginning to hear
Gone are the pathways
The child followed home
Gone, like the sand and the foam.
Dawn...like an angel
Lights on the step
Muting the morning she heralds
Dew on the grass
Like the tears the night wept
Gone long before
The day wears old.
Times stills the singing
A child holds so dear
And I'm just beginning to hear
Gone are the pathways
The child followed home
Gone, like the sand and the foam
Gone, like the sand
Gone, like the sand and the foam.
06 Run for the Roses (04:20)
Born in the valley
And raised in the trees
Of Western Kentucky
On wobbly knees
With mama beside you
To help you along
You'll soon be a-growin' up strong
Oh, the long lazy mornings
In pastures of green
The sun on your withers
The wind in your mane
Could never prepare you
For what lies ahead
The run for the roses so red
And it's run for the roses
As fast as you can
Your fate is delivered
Your moment's at hand
It's the chance of a lifetime
In a lifetime of chance
And it's high time
You joined in the dance
It's high time
You joined in the dance
From sire to sire
It's born in the blood
The fire of a mare and
The strength of a stud
It's breeding
And it's training
And it's something unknown
That drives you and carries you home
And it's run for the roses
As fast as you can
Your fate is delivered
Your moment's at hand
It's the chance of a lifetime
In a lifetime of chance
And it's high time
You joined in the dance
It's high time
You joined in the dance
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