Enzo Carella
Sfinge

Go around and ask about Pasquale Panella... "who?", "Panella, the one who wrote Battisti's last 5 albums", "ah yes, Battisti, the blonde braids, the blue eyes... and then?"... "And then a lot of other stuff, but let's close the conversation, otherwise I'll get violent". With these premises, talking about Enzo Carella is too much... Objectively, he has an insignificant name, hardly anyone with that name could succeed, it would be like being named Giovanni Calone, or Adriano Pappalardo. With names like these, you can't do anything good, nothing apart from perhaps a couple of albums (yes, I'm talking about Pappalardo). But he really did something good, even though his name was Enzo Carella. So why does no one, these days (and not), know who Enzo Carella is? Simple! For the same reason no one knows Battisti's last five albums, namely because of his lyricist. He's too ahead of his time... for something of Pasquale Panella to be remembered, the lyrics must reach the level, albeit not low (in my opinion), of "Vattene amore", more is too much.

I've already bored myself with these long-winded explanations, but when you talk about Enzo Carella, you have to make some premises, because there isn't a common base on which to build.

Enzo Carella comes out in 1981 with this album, the third in his short discography, which already in the title explicitly declares a certain hermeticism. Arrangements by Elio D'Anna and lyrics, as already mentioned, by Panella. At times pop, at times funk, a bit Latin... as in other albums by Carella himself and in almost all of Battisti's latest discography, it talks about love, a passionate love. It starts with "Stai molto attenta", which sounds halfway between a threat and a provocation. In my view, the quality only drops in the second track, "Sì, si può", which for some reason is chosen as the B-side of the vinyl along with the title track and used to promote the album in various TV shows. We find a bit of nostalgia in the track "Mare sopra e sotto", a lot of passion, sometimes even just explicit ("Sex show", "Che notte", "Lei no"), betrayals ("Contatto"), underwear changes, there's everything! Panella, as he will later confirm with Battisti, loves to talk about sex, about what is a verbal taboo but deep down is normality (more or less). Never vulgar, always very careful to censor with a bit of hermeticism what cannot be said in words.
I must have listened to this album at least a hundred times in the past year, I'm not exaggerating! I didn't understand anything about either the title track or the "final reflection", except for images thrown in, flashes that I can only try to connect to each other, and then that "locked in the hotel, instructions at the rear: 'do not jump from the balconies onto the flowers, never'", I love it!

Panella's hermeticism, to which Carella lends himself excellently, however, does not serve only to hide what the well-meaning (I include myself) would find inelegant to hear. Panella manages to make his songs immortal! What is immediately understood ceases to fascinate, because it has already said everything right away. The few who have the patience to listen and re-listen to the same albums after years catch new nuances, new interpretations each time, perhaps even something beyond what the author himself meant. If we combine Panella's great lyrics with music like Carella's, we get an absolutely non-conventional product and of challenging replication, even for Carella himself (yes, I'm thinking of "Ahoh Ye Nànà..."...).

DeBaser on a smartphone is crap, felt like I wanted to write that here.