Fabrizio De André
Creuza De Ma

Ok, it will be a tough task, but I will try. A LOT has already been written about this album, by Fabrizio's music enthusiasts, lovers, and those obsessed with his deep interpretation of the human species, its saddest behaviors, and the noble poverty that characterizes it, especially thanks to the underclass, studied like an old book with a yellowed and worn cover by Faber. Precisely for this reason I will try to give my interpretation of this album, more literary, more conceptual, and perhaps a bit more philosophical (you might say: "congratulations, you're putting yourself in trouble even before you start writing"). Fabrizio was a person in constant search of himself, every time he arrived, he was immediately dissatisfied with his condition, as a seeker, a traveler within his four walls, a dreamer of realities, he continually needed to undertake a new, challenging task, perhaps steeply uphill, to be content and satisfied with himself. Well, this time he exceptionally surpassed himself by creating, thanks to the collaboration of Mauro Pagani (former PFM), a total, complete work rooted in Genoese folklore and at the same time open to the world. I want to clarify my position in the interpretation of this album: I am a "bastard" half Piedmontese and half Ligurian, steeped in the peasant tradition of my lower Piedmont, made of wine, good food, and dialect, and of the culture of the arid Ligurian hinterland. Fabrizio wrote this album in Genoese, but not for the Genoese, for a people united by a much stronger bond. Creuza de ma speaks the language of the Mediterranean, a sea sweet to the eyes of those who have nothing, of the fishermen who rise early in the morning to pick up the nets in the sea, of the ladies selling olives in the sun at the market, a bitter sea for those who migrate, for those who travel, for those seeking a bridge to a presumably better future, African and Spanish sea, Greek and Italian, in a word MEDITERRANEAN. It is the percussion, combined with the sound of mandolins and bouzoukis that make us feel as one, a single vibration with a Moroccan brother, with a Turkish merchant, creating the spatial dimension of a mystical tale that transcends time and history, the passions and weaknesses of man, the horror of war, with saltiness on the lips. Why did Fabrizio choose Genoese; how come? Simple: don't you think that in a world made all the same, conforming to a common identity that tends to reassure and anesthetize us against the world because of damned globalization, the only way to be free, authentic, and revolutionary is to retreat into our millenary tradition? Choosing to speak dialect is not a peasant’s choice, but a necessity to avoid falling into the squalor of banality, which infects the great cities of the old continent as if it were a virus, depriving them of their original culture, folk songs, typical dishes, and sayings. By choosing the dialect, Fabrizio invites the Genoese to return to being Genoese, the Neapolitan to return to being Neapolitan, and the Sicilian to return to being Sicilian, to rediscover ourselves in the identity of our tradition. Like Dario Fo with theater, he brought back a dialect considered now grotesque and symbolic of ignorance by urban avant-gardes, Fabrizio embarked on his umpteenth revolution through ethnic music: it would be wrong to talk about world music, unfortunately, since all the artists involved in the project were Italian, local, capable of capturing all the sounds and vibrations of peoples near and far, the sounds in the tavern amid the smell of lasagnette with pesto and rabbit with olives and pine nuts, rather than those of the people of Marrakech gathering to eat couscous together. Faber's warm baritone voice has the cadence of Portuguese from the mingling that happened in the alleys behind the port, and I dream of stories of foreign sailors, Genoese whores, ancient merchants, and scents of the Orient, once again dreaming, thanks to Fabrizio.