Eros Ramazzotti
Tutte Storie

November 1993. The situation in Italy is similar to the current one, albeit not as dramatic: the Mani Pulite Pool arrests more people every day, many layoffs, a technical government skilled in cuts, a reduction in school funding, and the risk of privatization of education. The schools rise. It is the period of school occupations throughout Italy. My friends and I live inside the high school: discussions (politics, costume, society, religion), exchange of ideas (more or less civil), new friendships, and so on. In the afternoon, we are together listening to music and sharing opinions: unforgettable moments. One day Maria, my classmate, a proud member of the Ramazzotti fan club, brings me “Tutte Storie” and tells me to listen to it. My friend Massimo, who has been brainwashing me with the Beatles for about a year, and I respect her greatly for her strength and intelligence, so we don’t answer her rudely. Politely, we place it in the CD player, expecting the worst… and yet, here’s the unexpected album.

It starts with the electric guitar riff on E, and Massimo and I look at each other in astonishment: a guitar in Ramazzotti? Then the chord change with the three notes on LOW E and the dark organ that starts a serious, well-structured song, excellently arranged. I don’t listen to the lyrics, captivated by the melancholy of the music and the crystalline sound of the instruments.

The singing is too sincere (especially in the finale), nasal or not, not to touch me. Maria tells me it’s a biographical story—not a love song written for teenage girls—the end of a long relationship of many years between him and a woman he was supposed to marry. Pity about the lyrics, sometimes really bad: “I’m still standing, because all my dreams are human”; “If I take the curves of the heart, skidding a bit”.

Listening to it again twenty years later, of course, I evaluate it with more balance, but I continue to appreciate it. It’s true, the creative imagination is practically zero. After the initial chords, before the singing, the song is over. The only “original” thing is just the chord change that happens with the three notes of the LOW E, the ta-ta-ta, which sticks in your head from the first listen. A song written in 10 minutes and arranged in 10 weeks.

However, the melancholy organ in the background, the beautiful solo, and the excellent phrasing of Phil Palmer on the guitar make it a great song, very different from the horrible 1997 remake, terribly sung, done with Vinnie Colaiuta on drums (too prominent) and Mike Landau on guitar, which stripped the melancholic organ of the central role it had in the original version.

Several guitarist friends, although they will never admit it publicly, privately confess to having practiced a lot on this song when they started playing guitar.

The next song, “A mezza via”, is an excellent slow one—with depth. More organ, less guitar, more drums. Here the lyrics are good and speak of a desire for novelty.

Then comes “Un’altra te”. Nothing special, but I like the lyrics. It’s not a love song saying “how empty I am without you,” but it describes, with concrete and unsentimental images, the character of the woman who left him. At the end of the song, you know very well what his ex-partner was like: “There’s no one with the same imagination to keep up with the frenzied rhythms of my moods; and I miss your jealousy, even if maybe it was more mine”. It’s certainly not “Rimmel”, but between this one by Ramazzotti and many absurdly celebrated Italian love songs, there’s really no comparison—as far as the lyrics go.

“Memorie” talks about her again. The sobriety of the song combines with a very bright production. I don’t like the lyrics at all, especially for the Pascolian metaphor “ants crawling over the stars”.

“In compagnia” is a well-paced song. The lyrics are adolescent, with really annoying naiveties, but also some nice verses.

“Un grosso no” is, on the other hand, a splendid piano-guitar ballad. It’s sad to waste such a song with lyrics full of “almost-clichés”. It’s unclear who or what he’s saying his no against. And then ugly verses like this: “When the noise that’s there, you can’t understand what it is”.

And here’s the splendid “Favola”. I was incredulous listening to it, and twenty years later, it hasn’t lost any of its extraordinary beauty. The lyrics, inspired by “Favola d’Amore” by Hermann Hesse, also have a small literary value. The essence is that no man was born to be alone and that happiness cannot be found in selfishness: “Happiness is never half of an infinite.” Truly enchanting.

“Niente di male” and “Non c’è più fantasia” are two really mediocre songs. The second has truly terrible lyrics.

“Nostalsong”, on the other hand, is a beautiful song. A half-blues, with good work from Palmer, and a nice piano. Excellent sax solo, lasting more than a minute, without ever boring. Ramazzotti sings very well, very confidently. Pity about the lyrics, absolutely pointless, although words and music blend well.

“Esodi” is another piano-guitar ballad. Not bad, but the lyrics could have been done much better (which talks about the movement of young people from the villages to the city, observed by an older man).

“L’ultima rivoluzione” is a beautiful guitar song, with Palmer in excellent form during the solo. The essence of the lyrics doesn’t displease me: “Before trying to change the world, maybe we need to change ourselves,” although at several points, unfortunately, it falls into banality.

“Silver e Missie” is a splendid finale. Ramazzotti uses the image of two dolphins, really let go by an animal rights association, to talk about his “prison life”—as I read in an interview in a newspaper of the time. I found it really touching twenty years ago, and after twenty years, I haven’t changed my mind.

The strength of “Tutte Storie” is in the arrangements (5 stars), in some nice lyrics, in the guitar in certain pieces, and not in the compositional value of the songs, which are, in general, rather ordinary (let’s say on average 2.5 stars).

Obviously, “Tutte Storie” is an album made to sell, without real artistic value. Ramazzotti himself said: “I wanted to make a more radio-friendly album compared to ‘In Ogni Senso’”. It remains, however, a noteworthy album of “commercial pop”.

Let’s say it’s a 3.5 (average between 2 and 5), which I round up to 4 for the memories it evokes in me. With lyrics up to scratch and without those two bad songs, I would also give it a 5 in its genre.