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Rating:
Good the first time. Perhaps. Or maybe it's just splendid acting. Go figure these two old sly foxes. These two geniuses who have each managed to carry out (seemingly well) their respective professions until the hysterical world of music welcomed them with open arms, unable to do anything to deny their genius then (maybe today they would manage…).
The fact remains that it's unclear if this sublime 2006 recording, the year in which both could jovially call themselves septuagenarians, was a spur-of-the-moment take, we imagine after a day tasting Asti wines, in the natural and artificial fogs of Conte's studio, or if it's a clever, yet brilliant, planned construction.
Nowadays, unfortunately, it's hard to imagine anything, anything at all, in the world of entertainment that isn't planned down to the commas, the little pauses, or gasps of surprise. There's a survey and a market research for every eyebrow raise, as we know. But here, in this old yet brand-new song, everything sounds incredibly true, spontaneous, amusing, and amused. So, I would lean toward "good the first time." Both because it seems so even to a now jaded ear, and because the two, frankly, can afford it. The initial tempo is halved, and the song's harmonies are transformed, allowing space for a melancholic minor where a fast and cheerful major once triumphed.
Conte starts the verse with a drunken voice that makes us love him beyond allowable limits. Jannacci follows shortly after and does what he does better than anyone else (and there are many, in both music and cabaret, who overtly or not attempt continuous cloning): he does Jannacci. The entire first part of the song drags, tiresome and as I said melancholic and predominantly minor, through some mumblings and a few formally excessive but substantially perfect screams, until the tempo doubles and the song returns, at least apparently, to what it was before. To what it has always been.
And there we enjoy this perfect and courageous piece, this text that only an immense personality like Conte could dare to write and sing without finding armed feminists at his doorstep. This song that Jannacci brought to success long ago as a performer and Conte, in a slightly less distant past, perfectly resurrected as an author. This song that today sees them both nearly in service to it. Almost as if today, it is doing them a favor. Icy and true, unchanged at its core, letting itself be sung by the best who have ever sung it.
And the "good the first time" vibe emerges from the playful tone the two present in the second verse, where a "Bartoli" nonsensically takes the place of Bartali, and where the "French are fluttering" ("first slip") and the "papers are getting angry" ("second slip"), rather than the other way around. And again, and above all, from the gratuitous yet so heartfelt and meaningful final screams. Skewed and squawking choirs. Everything imperfect and almost wrong. And yet today absolutely perfect and appropriate.
The homage of two greats to an ancient song, to bygone times, to the relationship with women who want to pee and go to the cinema, and do not understand the meaning of sitting there waiting for Bartali, on that day that sets in orange and swells with memories that they, truly, just can't know.
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