Fabrizio De André
Opere Complete

It's a box, nothing more than an elegant box set (with all the song lyrics) and all, truly all, of De André's CDs. Indeed, the complete works. With some gems: the original version of "Il pescatore" (the 2-minute, minimalist one) which was almost impossible to find on CD, and the equally elusive (at least in 1999, the year the aforementioned box was released) "Una storia sbagliata". With some significant absences: "Caro amore"; "Titti", a shame. Highly recommended.

Now, however, do we make a review where each of De André's albums is reviewed quickly? Blasphemy. De André's albums can't be reviewed in two words; that would be sloppy. Considering that on Debaser each of his works has at least 7-8 reviews, the work would be not only foolish but pointless. So, let's do a bold crossover and dive into a book published by Mondadori, "Sotto le ciglia chissà - I Diari" (2016), equally recommended, and let the author himself explain his albums through thoughts and words (as someone would say). It's just a taste; the real beauty is in the 242-page literary work that, if you're a fan of the Genoese singer-songwriter, you must have at home.

"Children of the moon. That's what Plato called them, in a much more poetic way than we do, as we call them either gay or, strangely and proudly, different. And I like to dedicate this song [Andrea] to them, which we wrote for them many years ago, with the lights on, to show that today, at least in Europe, everyone can simply be themselves, without needing to be ashamed."

"I think that the exaggerations of these young writers, today called cannibals, have a different significance from the apparent one. A parallel with my songs: were times different? Maybe yes. Was the man different? Absolutely not. What was different was the approach of authority with its subjects. Especially those who expressed their discomfort through so-called works of genius. In my small way, I was tried for a harmless and goliardic text that I wrote with Paolo Villaggio: Carlo Martello ritorna dalla battaglia di Poitiers. Today, when everything is absorbed and justified in the name of the god of markets, artists continue to dissent from those who organize and control society for their own benefits and those of an elitist minority."

"But even if sailors live by the sea, there's a terrible longing for land, to have under the keel a friendlier and safer path, like the path that skirts the stone walls dividing the estates on the mountain slopes. The memory of Creuza de ma is the aromas, the taste of a sweet and sour cat casserole ("roof hare"), the white of Portofino; the sepia-colored, indelible face of those who stayed home. Bones, soul, and heart laid out to dry on the ground."

"A long time ago, I wrote a song called Bocca di rosa, where I somehow upheld the parity of the human female with the male of her species. Twenty-five years later, almost every six months, I read about the discovery of private brothels whose entraineuses aren't prostitutes but housewives, workers, schoolteachers. I wonder: Is it possible that they're all belles de jour? Isn't it that they do this to supplement their husbands' enormous salaries? This is just an indication, but it seems sufficient to me to affirm that, from the point of view of social achievements, we have gone a bit backward compared to the times of Bocca di rosa."

"I wrote songs against war, inspired by stories from my uncle, who endured the Albanian war in the last world war, and this is the case with Guerra di Piero. I wrote Sidùn talking about a Palestinian father crying over his son crushed under the wheels of an Israeli tank. I wrote Sand Creek... Apparently, none of this served much."

"The essence of La buona novella is this: Jesus' revolution aimed at eliminating any privilege, any class difference, and social order in the name of brotherhood which men showed, as they show, they do not know how to put into practice [...] If I believed in God, I would believe that life promises us a heavenly dessert after a horrible meal."

"Reading Le nuvole by Aristophanes, I wanted to reinterpret them my way, with clouds considered not as a meteorological phenomenon but as an allegory of power, those powerful ones who figuratively take away the sunlight and cast our freedom, our utopias, and our dignity in shadow. The album was to be a journey among their victims: victims of arrogance, malpractice, the abuse we are forced to endure by those governing politics, the economy, social life. But then, along the way, a centrifugal urge led us to divert to other themes, and the primary objective was somewhat dispersed."

"The last song of La Buona Novella is called Il testamento di Tito and, in my opinion, it's probably the highest moment of the entire work when Tito, the so-called good thief who dies alongside Jesus, challenges all Ten Commandments, highlighting the contradiction between those who make laws for their own benefit and those who have to observe them, often against their own interest. And here we are verifying, once again, how the truth of power is the truth of today."

"Regarding Le storie di ieri, I thought that fascism has two faces and no joy, has two heads and no culture, has two eyes and no horizon. Fascism has two hands and two thousand flags."

On the making of Amico Fragile: “I was still with Puny, my first wife, and one evening when we were in Portobello di Gallura, where we had a house, we were invited to one of these rich ghettos on the north coast. As usual, they asked me to take the guitar and sing, but I replied ‘Why don't we talk instead?’ It was the time when Paul VI had brought out the issue of exorcisms, he had said that the devil really exists. So this thing stayed in my throat and so I said: ‘Why don't we talk about what's happening in Italy?’. But no, they had decided I had to play. So I got fed up, got terribly drunk, insulted everyone, and went home. There I locked myself in the shed and in one night, drunk, I wrote Amico fragile. Puny found me at eight in the morning, she couldn't find me either in bed or anywhere, I was still in the warehouse finishing writing."

"The only big difference that separates me from Ivano [Fossati] is age: he is eleven years younger. So we esteem each other, collaborate, share moments of exhilarating joy, but we can't become real friends. In short, I can't talk to him about my prostate because he gets bored and he can't entertain me with his loves because I get annoyed. This is also why we work very well together."

"Life in Sardinia is perhaps the best a man could wish for: twenty-four thousand kilometers of forests, fields, coasts immersed in a miraculous sea should coincide with what I would advise the good Lord to give us as Paradise."

"If a man is to be judged by his choices and not by his fate or by chance, then it's fair to say that, being born in Genoa by chance and having chosen to live in Sardinia, I am much more Sardinian than the one who, being born by chance in Sardinia, has chosen to live in Rome. They are the real tourists, who come to spend 15 days a year in Sardinia."

"Do they complain about the gypsies? I wrote a song about it, Khorakhanè. Watch how they go begging for votes, I mean politicians. But they don't walk, they have buses that look like spaceships, trains, airplanes: and see them when they stop for lunch or dinner: they know how to eat with a knife and fork, and with a knife and fork they will eat your savings. Italy belongs to a hundred men, are we sure these hundred men belong to Italy?"

"I bought my life with songs and smiles"