Edoardo Bennato
E' arrivato un bastimento

Since a new album has just been released where Edoardo Bennato, alongside various other musicians, enjoys reinterpreting some of his most interesting pieces in a 2005 style, it would be good to remember from which album more than half of the tracks in the current concept come. The fairy tale considered is that of the Pied Piper, and the album was "E' arrivato un bastimento," which at the time was a commercial and critical semi-flop. It's time to reassess it as it deserves because that is an album that perhaps wasn't fully understood back then.

Musically, Edoardo was experimenting with the then-popular calypso-ska-reggae rhythms with surprising results for an Italian artist. In terms of lyrics, he was the usual Edoardo Bennato, biting, ironic, and iconoclastic about the ills of our society. Moreover, the lyrics demonstrate how, since then, times have not only not improved but have even changed for the worse. The show begins in the company of people from all walks of life who make deals with the rulers of the sewers (the rats) to occupy the city infested by far worse shady characters. The fairy tale is a game that can be lived in a single moment; it always ends well and is only half true (because it doesn't always end well?). The television, this master and lord of our ideas and minds, constantly anesthetizes us with advertisements, trivial fourth-rate shows, and presenters and charlatans of all kinds, deceitful and cowards. Then there is a keen critique of racism; in this case, the focus is on cats ("the black cat brings bad luck, but all cats are useless, profiteers, and opportunists; let's get rid of them!"). History, as we know, is always written by the victors, but the real truth—when will we ever discover it? For this reason, it's better to always have some doubt about the veracity of certain history texts, just in case. The satire on taxes is also not missing, represented by a little operetta (in the style of "Tutti insieme lo denunciam") where, from a payment to an artist for "a million coins", deductions are made for VAT, ILOR, collection expenses, contrition, and boiling, ending up with a net of "three coins" (taxes, taxes...). Then come the politicians, those who think they are beautiful and important and treat citizens like subjects, giving you an illusion of democracy, every year when Carnival comes, they pull out the electoral card, and you delude yourself that you are deciding by putting a random cross where it seems best.

We arrive at the story of a girl who wants to go out alone in the evening, and why not? What's wrong if many like her wanted to do the same? But for the moralists, it's not correct, "there's always the risk that someone might bother her", or perhaps there's some less noble thought underneath? If you have imagination, you'll realize that a ship full of novelties has arrived, but those who allow themselves to be overly influenced by television and advertising, in short, those who have cut ties with imagination will notice nothing. Music is the true mover of imagination, so let's follow it. The show ends, the fairy tale ends, everyone returns to their everyday reality, but there's always imagination left to be able to live the fairy tale each on their own. The album had an appendix in the form of a 12" addition with two songs, a kind of "singer's prayer" ("Specchio delle mie brame"), then there's another "comment" on society ("Il gatto mangia il topo"), I see it as a policeman who refuses to punish the outcasts mentioned at the beginning ("The cat eats the mouse, but the cat doesn’t agree, and the mouse enjoys full freedom"). Returning to the music, here there's ska ("Assuefazione"), calypso-reggae ("Il gatto mangia il topo"), blues ("Addosso al gatto"), pure reggae ("Eccoli i prestigiatori"), rocksteady ("La città trema"), in short, Edoardo wasn’t resting even then, and the commercial and critical failure of that time once again demonstrates that in the early '80s, the average quality of the public's taste and also that of those who should INFORM (and not direct) the public about musical releases was rather questionable.