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Rating: I think it's impossible to find someone who has never heard of De André. Because with his simplicity, with his poetry, with his great compositional abilities, he produced masterpiece after masterpiece. This album deserves a lot (even to be reviewed 47 years after its release). The songs are certainly not cheerful or satirical (for that, there's "Rimini"), but if the textual department is of such high caliber, of such great emotional impact, cheerfulness takes a back seat. Just listen to the purity and rarity of the stories the Genoese myth tells in tracks like "Il suonatore Jones" or "Un ottico". Poems accompanied by acoustic sounds, refined yet not pompous, so well crafted that they demonstrate a musical preparation not of a first grader. In fact, there are also tracks in the album ("Un medico", "Un chimico", "Un giudice") that use music as a tool to rhythmically and incisively tell truly sad stories, of men left to their fate, dead or abandoned at work, due to their solitary nature, or physical deformities. And then there are still great songs that can make the tales of madmen, blasphemers, heart patients less tragic, with very simple sounds, but with an indescribable effect, at least on those who listen well. But not everyday listeners. After all, the link between the composer-songwriters (Fossati, Dalla, Battisti) and the poet-songwriters (Guccini, De Gregori, Gaetano) was and will only ever be him, at least in Italy: De André.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
03 Un giudice (02:55)
Cosa vuol dire avere
un metro e mezzo di statura,
ve lo rivelan gli occhi
e le battute della gente,
o la curiosità
d'una ragazza irriverente
che vi avvicina solo
per un suo dubbio impertinente:
vuole scoprir se è vero
quanto si dice intorno ai nani,
che siano i più forniti
della virtù meno apparente,
tra tutte le virtù
la più indecente.
Passano gli anni, i mesi,
e se li conti anche i minuti,
è triste trovarsi adulti
senza essere cresciuti;
la maldicenza insiste,
batte la lingua sul tamburo
fino a dire che un nano
è una carogna di sicuro
perché ha il cuore troppo
troppo vicino al buco del culo.
Fu nelle notti insonni
vegliate al lume del rancore
che preparai gli esami
diventai procuratore
per imboccar la strada
che dalle panche d'una cattedrale
porta alla sacrestia
quindi alla cattedra d'un tribunale
giudice finalmente,
arbitro in terra del bene e del male.
E allora la mia statura
non dispensò più buonumore
a chi alla sbarra in piedi
mi diceva "Vostro Onore",
e di affidarli al boia
fu un piacere del tutto mio,
prima di genuflettermi
nell'ora dell'addio
non conoscendo affatto
la statura di Dio.
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Other reviews
By Grasshopper
This record is above all a marvelous anthem to freedom.
I felt, by pure instinct, that there was something good in that record, something that would accompany and guide me for a long time.
By let there be rock
The nine poems adapted to our times touch on two themes: envy and science.
The music is full of pathos and engages the listener even when it’s very simple.
By enbar77
"Without a doubt the most majestic work of that Fabrizio De André who insisted on leaving us before his time."
"It is Fabrizio De André’s absolute masterpiece... one of the greatest musical interludes ever written."
By YC
Fabrizio De André was a poet, lent to music, who knew how to express through it, words of incredible depth, profound metaphors with great human and social meaning.
An album never old because it tells stories that are always current, an album that doesn’t get lost in time.
By the poet
This album is a unique blend of poetry, social critique, and psychedelic folk, making it a mammoth Italian work.
De André’s versions are more beautiful than the originals by E.L. Masters, transcending historical limits.
