Davide Van De Sfroos
Akuaduulza

I really have talked too much about Fabrizio De André in recent weeks, but I want to talk about him a little more, so today I will talk about Davide Van De Sfroos..

For those who do not know him, Davide Bernasconi (aka Van De Sfroos) is a man in his late fifties, from the deep north of Italy, who makes songs.

The first impression he made on me, as a good southerner, during the times of concerts for Bossi's Lega Nord (who knows why they only advertised those even if it seems he sang for everyone...) was of a face (not too friendly) like many others and a voice, like many others, from a debate on the independence of Padania at the railway workers' club, in one of the many proudly Padania towns of northern Italy.

In short, nothing special..

Then I got to know him better and today he is, for me, to start with, a bit like the Camilleri of Italian singer-songwriters, with the only difference being that he writes in a beautiful dialect spoken at the extreme opposite of Italy.

A sort of Camilleri for the shrewdness of his dialectal lyrics (in laghè) and his village stories, often flavored with mysteries, shady stories, sex, but also for the professional popularity achieved in "late age" (I'm referring to the participation in Sanremo in 2011).

Besides this, Davide Bernasconi is above all, for me, of course, and I come to the point, the only true heir, in the 2000s, of Fabrizio De André's extraordinary poetic power in the form of songs.

I am sure that if Faber had lived a few more years, he would have sung his songs at a concert together with him, or even made an album together.

De André's characters would have easily befriended those of Bernasconi, Jamin-A, for example, could have easily been one of the “attractions” of “Il Paradiso dello scorpione”.

Just compare these “fiery” verses, the first from the man from Como, the second from the Genovese:

"and a woman who seems like an eel handles underwear and sheets …

but if the devil has a bottle this woman is his funnel"

(Davide Bernasconi, "Il Paradiso dello Scorpione")

"And the last breath Jamina, Queen mother of sambas

I will keep it to leave alive from the knot of your legs"

(Fabrizio De André, "Jamin-A")

Furthermore, the protagonist of “Il libro del mago” does not have a story and fate too dissimilar to the protagonist of “Un medico”, both come from an ideal age, of dreams, of utopias, of illusions, one ends up selling "snow flowers" only to end up in prison, the one with bars, the other selling "talismans and copper bracelets", and illusory futures, once inevitably ended up in his very personal “prison of the universe”, after being “in the lap” of the universe.

Davide Bernasconi's songs are made of lightning images telling stories of ordinary people, thanks to their humanity, even in their uniqueness, just like our greatest singer-songwriter poet did.

Akuadulza, in my opinion, is his masterpiece.

The album, and the song.

A portrait in the form of a lullaby, impressionistic and extraordinarily beautiful, of an enchanted place out of time, perhaps calling to mind, more than De André and Camilleri, the great Dylan Thomas (the declared literary passion of the man from Como) and his “Under Milk Wood”, the style with which the song ends is the style with which the Welsh drama begins:

“The children sleep, the farmers, the fishermen, (…), and the cows in the barns, and the dogs in the muddy yards, one hears the dew falling (…)

And only you hear the invisible fall of the stars, the motion more than ever obscure (…) of the sea full of sole and turbot (…)

Listen, (…) it is the liturgical salty and musical wind (…)

(Dylan Thomas, "Under Milk Wood")

"And a boat passes and a winter passes and a war passes and the fish pass

The wind that steals your coat passes and the fog passes that encloses the stars"

(Davide Bernasconi, "Akuadulza")

One last thing.

I recently heard on YouTube an interview where De André talked about his limitations as a music author and recognized in Lucio Dalla the only Italian singer-songwriter capable of composing great lyrics and at the same time great music.

Here, this album contains what could have been the result of an unlikely but suggestive collaboration between Dalla and Faber, “Il prigioniero e la tramontana”.

The story of “La casa in riva al mare” rewritten in De André's poetic style, a better homage to our greatest singer-songwriters could not have been there:

Perhaps my answer is now cold
inside the hourglass of this prison
Tramontana what do you want... we have a thunder without a voice
Every hourglass dreams of losing sand in a desert...

And we all say that now it is late
and we all say it is too early
and we all say it's early, it's late, but no one knows for what
and we all say we were angels but got diverted
and we have crumpled and folded wings under the coat.

How can one blame him…