Fabrizio De André
Storia di un impiegato

Talking about it here a few days ago made me want to write something about it, also because my opinion (which I know to be in the minority) might attract more or less fierce criticism. Amen, as they say, the truth always works.

"Storia di un impiegato" is a great album, but among all De André's works, along with "Vol. 8," it's the one I like the least. For reasons opposite to those of the 1975 album, which I find perhaps a bit lifeless despite two immortal masterpieces like "Amico fragile" and "Giugno '73." Then again, let's be clear, a De André album I like less still deserves a 4/5 rating, less is impossible. So, that's the rating for the 1973 record. If I were to hypothetically divide the work, I'd say side B is far superior to A. The problem I've always had with this work is: if I listen to "La canzone di Marinella" or "Creuza de ma," even 500 years from now they'll tell me something, suggest emotions, leave me (still) awestruck; this album does not, because it's a political album, a product of its time (1973), because it's too much inside its years, because, in the end, it talks about things from those years with that language. "Creuza de ma" speaks to eternity, "Storia di un impiegato" speaks about the present, which today is (long) past.

For instance, the French May. Now, who remembers it if you're under 50? Imagine, it's already a lot if they get you to 1945 in school (and I know of someone who doesn't even know if we won or lost World War II), think about the French May, the movements of '68, the story of a thirty-year-old employee (already then, 30 was the new 50) tempted by terrorism. It's as if De André held his breath and wanted to tell what he saw and lived without worrying too much about someone, arriving perhaps years later, wondering: who are the puppies of May?

And up to this point, the reasons why I like it less. To be honest, it didn't even appeal that much to the author:

"The 'Storia di un impiegato' was written by me, Bentivoglio, Piovani, in a year and a half of torment, and when it came out I wanted to burn the record. It was the first time I declared myself politically and I know I used a language too dark, difficult, I know I didn't succeed in explaining myself."

(Fabrizio De André in an interview from "Domenica del Corriere" in January 1974)

Of course, it still contains beautiful things, because it's still De André. Coincidentally, it works better in the private part than the public one, with the exception of "Il bombarolo," the tracks depicting the relationship between the protagonist and his partner are the best, or at least those that remained most in the collective memory (and the only ones De André performed in concert): "Verranno a chiederti del nostro amore" is pure poetry, with the delicate piano accompaniment of Nicola Piovani. Just like the concluding "Nella mia ora di libertà" that has so many phrases, those passages of text that could fill pages of musical history without (ever) wanting to close them: "Uomini e donne di tribunale, se fossi stato al vostro posto ma al vostro posto non ci so stare"; "Da diventare così coglioni da non riuscire più a capire che non ci sono poteri buoni." In short, the universal themes (as always in art, any art) prevail and remain more than the private navel-gazing issues.

The album, which opens with an instrumental leading into "La canzone del Maggio," seems, especially at the beginning, undecided about which path to take. "Al ballo mascherato" seems too blatantly a derivative of a Dylan song (in the music and text), yet is counterposed with the excellent "Sogno numero due," which is a recitation, with a stroke of genius, purely De André: the role reversal between judge and defendant. This is where genius is seen, in these passages that no other Italian author of the time would have dared (but, I'd say, even thought), and the initial discussion of being too "inside its years" is easily bypassed when the author attempts to unbind from recounting the present and instead dives into the "forever" ("Sogno numero due" could have been written yesterday; "Al ballo mascherato" is truly 70s).

Then there's a small problem, which De André himself would notice years later: the musical aspect. It's pop, a bit pop-rock, a bit singer-songwriter style, with even some (vague) prog hints: musically it's always seemed to me to have aged terribly; for instance, "La buona novella" from three years earlier, minimalist and at times even reluctant in its musicality, seems arranged a thousand times better, and here I think the 27-year-old Nicola Piovani, perhaps driven by his youthful age and the chance to work with De André, really indulged in too many sonic flourishes that burden the words and the work overall. A completely different sound atmosphere was crafted by Mauro Pagani in "Creuza de ma," but perhaps, if Pagani was, by the time of "Creuza de ma," in his artistic maturity, Piovani was not. But this can't be an excuse either, as it's the same Piovani who, two years before, arranged "Non al denaro non all'amore né al cielo" in an exemplary way. So, well, I don't know, it evidently went as it did.

But still, it's De André, and if you write "Canzone del padre" everything is forgiven (despite the long initial musical introduction that, as was being said...).