Fabrizio De André
Rimini

THE REVIEW

This is what is commonly called a transitional album, which on one hand revisits the intimate and poetic Degregorian themes of "Vol. 8," and on the other opens up to the ethnic influences that will increasingly dominate later albums, culminating in the final masterpiece "Anime salve."
Transitional yes, but still of high quality, except for a bit of filler in the finale (mostly the Sardinian joke "Zirichiltaggia" and the instrumental "Folaghe"). With this album begins the series of collaborations with other authors, which will continue until the last album: in "Rimini," the co-author (of the lyrics and the music) is a little-known but capable singer-songwriter from Verona, Massimo Bubola.

It starts well: "Rimini" is a wonderful ballad with delicate guitar arpeggios, a profound portrait of a woman in the style of Leonard Cohen. Even though Teresa, unlike Suzanne, is not a crazy "woman of the port" but a simple grocer's daughter, and is impregnated by a very vulgar lifeguard, in her imagination myths (and nightmares) such as the Holy Inquisition, the Cuban revolution, Christopher Columbus, etc., alternate. In short, an earthbound "Suzanne," like the setting where the story takes place (Rimini, indeed, "between ice creams and flags").
"Volta la carta" is a vaguely Scottish "folk" nursery rhyme, with beautiful violins at the forefront, narrating the love misadventures of a naïve Angiolina.
With "Coda di lupo," there is a return to a certain harshness of the lyrics, an ability to narrate even uncomfortable realities (protests, years of lead) by saying and not saying, using metaphors taken from the language of the Wild West. Raw (Dylanian) hermeticism in this case.
More sentimental (Degregorian) is instead the hermeticism of "Andrea," a magical ballad with Greek suggestions in the typical plucked guitars, whose enigmatic lyrics speak of a man who "has lost himself and does not know how to return."
"Avventura a Durango" is "Romance in Durango" by Bob Dylan. De André even received compliments from the great American singer-songwriter for the excellent translation of this story of two fugitives, set in a western setting and with undeniably Mexican music (even though the choruses are sung in Neapolitan). The freedom is that of the traveler, the nomad, as in the sweet fairy tale of "Sally," an enchanting story of a child whose mother warns him not to play with the gypsies in the forest, but since "the forest was dark, the grass already tall... there came Sally with a tambourine" he disappears and joins their wandering. It is embellished by a romantic accordion that highlights the fitting melody of the choruses.
Finally, the original and dark "Parlando del naufragio della London Valour," in which De André speaks as in a Dylanian talking blues, but instead of a sparse guitar, he is accompanied by an evocative and intense music, decidedly leaning toward rock.