Enzo Jannacci
I soliti accordi

DeBaser is still missing a big chunk of Jannacci's records and I consider myself a great admirer of this genius. Even though most of his records were released before I was born, and some before my mother was born. And she had seen Jannacci at the 44th edition of the Sanremo festival, with a song called "I soliti accordi", sung together with Paolo Rossi. And today we will talk about the album that bears the same name as the piece. Premise: I do not hate this album, on the contrary, I like it a lot, but it is slightly inferior compared to the others he made.

It begins with "I soliti accordi", as we already mentioned before, an ironic piece that talks about politics, but it takes courage to bring a song that mocks everyone and everything to Sanremo (it's fantastic). A revisitation of "Il primo furto non si scorda mai" (which is not bad) leads us to "Io ero quello là", a long, melancholic, and at times comical song that tells the story of a boy who cleans floors in a disco; it's wonderful. "Diagonale" is rock n' roll, it's fun but also a bit bitter: it depicts snippets of daily life and the worldview of Jannacci as a doctor; interesting. Then comes like a lightning a revisitation of "Il bonzo": its duration increases by 2 minutes and becomes a bigger and more direct denunciation than that of 1975; in short, a denunciation cubed. After a colossus like "Il bonzo" you need to calm the waters a bit; hence another revisitation of "Per la moto non si dà", enriched with an unprecedented rap part. Anyway, it was necessary to lighten the atmosphere a bit, because with "E adesso" the atmosphere becomes heavy: with "E adesso" Jannacci scratches and denounces, creating the thematic center of the album. The underlying melancholy becomes the protagonist in "Parlare col liquido", but it's nothing special: it's just a monologue that is at times nostalgic at times surreal. "Occhi di soldato" brings us back to reality: on the surface it seems like a love song (and I thought so too) but in reality, it talks about hope, placed in a girl from the suburbs. Denunciation, rock n' roll, and the words of Dario Fo come together to form "Tutti gli uomini del re" (those who see a reference to "Ho visto un re" are on the wrong track): it talks about crisis, politics, and the fall of the Berlin Wall, all factors that make this piece appealing. A surreal and melancholic conclusion with "L'uomo di gesso": it talks about a man of chalk of course, but also about the loss of values, those values that Jannacci considered important.

In essence, it is a beautiful album but a bit less fresh and more difficult compared to the others, I recommend a careful listen.