Fabrizio De André
Anime salve

THE REVIEW

[In this review, I will only talk about the song Anime salve]

I have read several comments about the album Anime salve, all quite accurate. But throughout these years, now more than ten since I discovered De André, there's always been some skepticism lingering. I wasn't convinced that the common interpretation was the most accurate, or simply the only possible one.

I listened to the tracks on this album and couldn't understand; my understanding was lacking. And so, I avoided this album for quite some time. Too enigmatic, too cryptic. In particular, the song that gives the title remained incomprehensible to me. Therefore, I let experiences, readings, my understanding capabilities settle.

Then last night, before sleeping, I felt a need, the necessity to listen to a song that was a source of knowledge, a consoling yet disillusioned spark in the middle of the night. I don't know why, but I put on Anime salve. Not the whole album, just a couple of songs. After years, I confronted the song in question. And maybe I understood it.

The «anime salve» that Faber talks about are not those who go in obstinate and contrary directions, not the Romani, not the excluded, the prostitutes, the dwarfs. He already spoke about that in the Sixties; it wouldn't have been a further development of his poetry. The anime salve are all the souls of men because the soul is a «beautiful deception», i.e., it doesn't exist, it's an illusion.

The vision of De André and Fossati is profoundly metaphysical, from an external perspective on life. And then everything becomes a game, a frin frin, good and evil disappear, they blur until they become identical. They are all «just passages and passages / passages of time». Man's life is this: «a thousand years in the world, a thousand more». A tiny thing, killing time, a year more, a year less.

Good and evil no longer disturb: «They were furious days / without acts of love / without the calm of the wind», but there will also be «future encounters of beautiful, wicked lovers». It doesn't matter much: they will be worries for another thousand years, but this is life, «infinite hours like constellations and waves».

There is an a priori acceptance of existence because it's the only thing we have, and everything gets mixed up. Time flattens: memory is relentless, and yet it's never enough; we continue to face life and its harshness. And then the future, which is beautiful only before it arrives, but it doesn't matter. Another thousand years, we endure a little longer.

The assessment of one's time cannot be clear: «and how great this time / what loneliness / what beautiful company». Apparently a paradox, but not in the depersonalized vision of this song. Life is companionship, but it's also great loneliness. De André sees himself from outside: «I watched myself cry in a snow mirror / I saw myself laughing / I saw myself leaving with my back turned».

The things in life, the failures and tragedies, are ground to dust by time. The value scale is lost: «I spied on myself deceiving and failing / aborting children like dreams». A child, the most carnal and concrete thing that exists, is likened to a dream, clouds of thoughts. Because life and dream overlap, everything aligns in a radically different and detached knowledge horizon.

This is the lyrical surplus of the song, incredibly difficult to understand (I have read other reviews and found no analysis on this single track). And so here is the final poetic step of Fabrizio: after elevating the last, after dismantling bourgeois canonical thoughts, after loving the prostitutes, he arrives at the final vision, summing up his existence: a deception, many passages of time, illusions and failures, wicked lovers, children, and dreams. But it was beautiful, a great company. And so, let it continue (hurting ourselves a bit): the future, another thousand years.

The words come out slowly, deliberate, grained. The melody almost disappears because these are visions to be solemnly recited. And the English horn frames the verses in a sacred way, while still maintaining a lively and almost festive tone. That sacred, tragic, and joyous feast that is life.