Edoardo Bennato
Le ragazze fanno grandi sogni

THE REVIEW

Edoardo Bennato has had to deal with "criminal matters" twice in his life. The first time was in 1981, when he was arrested and spent a night in jail on charges of aggravated defamation for having, during one of his concerts, called the then Chief of Police of Taranto, Musumeci, an "imbecile" (according to other versions, a "jerk"), because he had not allowed the audience at the concert to occupy the grass in front of the stage. He was given a speedy trial and sentenced to a fine of 250,000 lire, in addition to court costs. The second time happened in 1995, when he had a terrible car accident near Casalgrande (Reggio Emilia): he, who was driving, was seriously injured but "got away with" several fractures, while his then twenty-three-year-old partner, Paola Ferri, who was traveling with him, died after five days of agony in a hospital in Modena. After several hearings, the Neapolitan singer-songwriter was found to be the sole party responsible for the accident and thus convicted of involuntary manslaughter, even though, as mentioned, he too had risked dying in the crash.

In this context of great pain and suffering, in 1995 the album "Le ragazze fanno grandi sogni" was released, almost entirely dedicated to the aforementioned tragedy and featuring almost exclusively love songs. Until then, Bennato had rarely spoken of love in his lyrics. He had done so only in "Una settimana...un giorno..." from his first album in 1973, "Non farti cadere le braccia," and in 1987 with "Tu vuoi l'America" from the album "Ok Italia." In that case, die-hard Bennato fans harshly criticized the singer-songwriter since he, known for protest and "social" songs, had dared to record a love song and, even more shockingly, this piece—released as a single—became hugely successful! To further scandalize them, the fact that another single from that album, the very "Ok Italia"—whose video featured none other than Miss Italy 1984, Susanna Huckstep (as well as a young, then-unknown Simona Tagli)—had the same, if not greater, success: an outrage! And it didn’t matter that on that same 1987 album there were songs like "Mestieri che s’inventano," "Era una festa," "Allora chi," "La città obliqua," "La televisione che felicità," and especially the splendid "Chi beve chi beve"; and that "Tu vuoi l'America," in the end, was simply a beautiful and inspired love song. But this, as they say in these cases, is another story...

So, in 1995, Bennato tackled a subject that was almost unusual for him: love. The album, after opening with the title track—dedicated to the female universe in general and the male’s chronic inability to understand it—moves, in the remaining tracks, onto a strictly personal level, evoking the tragedy of that year. The search for someone, indeed for a woman, now unfortunately lost forever, is evident even in some of the titles: "Cerco il mio amore," "Che ci sei," "C'è," "Afferrare una stella."

In some of these, the "call" to a presence that becomes an absence is clear: "Mare chiaro: di giorno brilla da lontano e già si sente quel profumo, quell'onda che non smette mai. Mare scuro: di notte non è più sicuro ed anche se ti stringo a me finisce il sogno