Enzo Jannacci
Quelli Che...

THE REVIEW

Personally, I find it quite shameful the almost complete indifference of the Italian music industry towards this great figure who, besides being a singer-songwriter of great poetry and a refined musician, gave a decisive push to the Milanese song and cabaret scene. The older albums of our singer-songwriter-doctor have never even been reissued on CD, and it is something that cries out for vengeance, given the beauty of some of these which, if they do not reach the masterpiece, at least come very close.

Probably his most beautiful album from all points of view is this "Quelli che...", a record that, thirty years after its release, has not lost a gram of its strength and relevance. Yes, because it is absolutely still true that "la televisiùn la g'ha una forsa de leùn, la g'ha paùra de nisùn, la te n'dormenta me'n cojùn", indeed, today more than ever.
The song "Quelli che..." is a historic piece, which moreover adapts to be dismantled and reassembled according to the times and never loses a bit of its dialectic power and irony (I crack up when Enzo says "Quelli che fanno l'amore in piedi convinti di essere in un piedaterre").
"El me indiriss" is charming, childhood memories lived on the street, when "la legge l'era de dai via, ma l'era anca quella de ciapai" with a gang of raggedy kids, but of infinite humanity.

"Il monumento," with lyrics taken from a manifesto of those that in the past filled the great cities, those announcing demonstrations. There are also some witty spoken interludes, also with the collaboration of one of the finest Italian journalists, that Beppe Viola, who left us too soon, at only 42 years old in 1982. Beppe dealt with sports (he was also the brilliant host of "Domenica Sportiva"), but he was an all-around writer. Even in the spoken interludes, however, in the great irony, there are many elements of truth, with sarcasms about karate ("Per giocare a karatè bisogna conoscere l'indirizzo segreto di Martin Bormann..."), about the many maniacs of exotic travel at all costs ("Per andare in Kenia bisogna sapere dov'è..."), about prison ("Viva la galera") and about medical malpractice ("Dottore").
Going back to the songs, there's also the participation of the loyal Cochi e Renato ("L'arcobaleno"), then there are two genuine masterpieces: "Vincenzina e la fabbrica" is a desperate vision of factory work, with the wife waiting for him at the exit, and with the boss who doesn't even have problems with football faith ("Zero a zero anche ieri 'sto Milan qui, 'sto Rivera che ormai non mi gioca più, che tristezza, il padrone non ci ha neanche quei problemi qui"). "Il bonzo", then, is another of those pieces with a strong relevance even today, the problem of unemployment has certainly not decreased, and it tells the desperation of a man who finds himself from one day to the next without a job, without a house, without a car and without a woman, and decides to set himself on fire, like, precisely, the bonzes.
"9 di sera" is a delicate translation from Chico Buarque de Hollanda ("A televisao"), and it is a kind of film. The camera frames a lone man in the street while everyone else is at home watching TV variety shows. The moon in the sky tries to distract him, while the man debates and "argues with himself" due to the loneliness and the lack of an interlocutor to talk to. In the end, the man goes home and the moon in the sky "resigned and a bit disappointed hides behind the wall to watch TV". Finally, the complete and tragic madness of "Il marognero", before the last spoken intervention with which the record concludes, leaving the listener torn between admiration for this great singer-songwriter and sorrow for the depth of the themes touched.

It would be appropriate for today's listeners to benefit from these emotions too, reissue the record!!!