Diaframma
Non E' Tardi

THE REVIEW

I often feel it again...

These are the August days, with the heat burning your temples and an irrepressible desire to make love, that hurt you the most. Winter would comfort you, at least you could retreat under your blanket in the dimness of your home. You’re left defenseless when everything seems lost, worse than past and future days because from the bottom you can only rise. It probably happened to Federico Fiumani. He said no to Sanremo, missed that easy money train, and they already considered him finished. It was the second time they told him so, the first time was when “Boxe” came out. Now, those who talk about it as his masterpiece, are they right? I don’t know. I just want to find myself for a moment, go outside, and smile at those women who will look at me askance because I’m wearing my shirt inside out. Fiumani, fortunately, remains himself. He is today as he has always been, so he will never be finished. Don’t ask me what his masterpiece is or his best moment. Was the Fiumani of “Siberia” better? The one who shouts “The Doorman” and screams “January”? The one who dreams of Vaiano or a lost love in the depths of Florence (“Francesca 1986”)? The one from today with his new girlfriend? They’re all good to me, we who love him have loved them all. Sooner or later, we’ll understand that album or another because we'll manage to align it with a moment in our life, whether it's good or bad.

The Fiumani of this album is 35 years old, as I said before, he is not better than the others. He’s differently beautiful. He is with Chiara, loved her like he loved the children he wanted with her (“Paternity”). Loved her and brought her close so she wouldn’t be afraid and then renounced her because she was no longer in his dreams (“Flower don’t feel alone” and “Stay away from me”). He suffered, he screamed because many others spoke, creating disciples and beliefs that would disappear like their desire to be alive. His pain was encapsulated in a feverish lake (“But finish it” and “You should see what a fever”). I often feel it again, it’s not the only album of his I happen to listen to again yet I am very fond of this one: I want to understand it, I want it to be part of me. It’s a feeling, it won’t give me the answers I seek (either I find those myself or I’m screwed) but I am convinced it can help me. It’s not too late to learn to play. It’s not too late to sleep, despite hundreds of books awaiting me to be packed in brown boxes and sent to the shredder tomorrow morning. It’s not too late to understand a song and an album by Federico Fiumani, it’s not too late to tell you all to fuck off because 10 years have passed between “Siberia” and “Not too late”. 25 years have passed but I can’t understand you: you’re stuck in a snowy landscape with a boy to whom you wished the worst thing: to be an Italian version of Brian Gilbert or Bernard Summer. Not because they don’t deserve to be taken as an example (for heaven’s sake, Wire and Joy Division are always good models) but because you wanted to deny him a beautiful thing: to express himself.

There is nothing more beautiful in life than making it on your own, Fiumani succeeded and for this, he is a hero. So, I throw the second “fuck off” at Guccini because he wrote a big bullshit: heroes are all young and beautiful. Bullshit, the hero is perfect. He doesn’t need clarifications, who cares if he’s young and beautiful. He is such and perfect as he is, that’s why there is no better or worse Fiumani. They are all different, all beautiful. Before we die, we’ll understand them all and love them all in the same way. Time will fade into us like the guitar at the end of this album, it will do so tiredly as my sloth-fat body will come out of yours, warm and panting. To those who will say you’re too beautiful to be with someone like me, I won’t even give a glance. It will mean that I will have understood many things, starting with how to align this piece of F.F.'s career with my life. They’ll be two different pieces from two different puzzles, but they’ll fit because there will be two women between them. One I saw in Brescia on Friday, she’s Fede's new girlfriend, the other will be entirely discovered like this album.

It’s not too late to find a girl.