Fabrizio De Andrè
Vol. 3

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«If I were fire, I would burn the world, / if I were wind, I would storm it». Cecco Angiolieri, the first «young angry man» of European literature, began his most «terrible» sonnet like this, seven centuries ago.

In the era of mystics, amidst the graceful blooms of the «dolce stil novo», the Sienese poet discovered the bitter taste of imprecation as an antidote to the pain of living; the lexicon of rage as a seal of despair; the sneer expanded to vulgarity as a verification of the daily tragic.

Fabrizio De André, one of the true «young angry men» of contemporary music, has drawn upon the lesson of Messer Cecco in its hallucinatory relevance. Going far beyond certain convenient definitions, which portray Angiolieri as an acrid ambitionist and a street blasphemer, he deeply understood the disconcerting «truth» of the medieval poet, he immersed himself in the dramatic wisdom of his «protest», today more alive and vocal than ever.

This is why the hypothesis of a spiritual meeting between the thirteenth-century bard and the twentieth-century storyteller is not only suggestive, but also credible. In other words, the fact that De André clothed the Sienese's verses with music (an ironic java) is not accidental but stems from precise motivations. The connection between Cecco and Fabrizio is a nod of understanding between two authors separated by seven centuries yet so very close, almost relatives.

Those who know Fabrizio through his songs - the long story of a rebellion - will not struggle to ascertain it.

To discover the nature and consistency of this bond, it will be enough to listen to this disc dated 1968 in which De André presents, alongside Angiolieri's sonnet, some of the most significant pages of his work from the past and present. Among the latter, it is important to highlight two translations from Brassens, another poet to whom the Genoese songwriter is connected by particular affinities of taste, choices, and inclinations.

Looking closely, I would say that the protest, indeed the rebellion of Fabrizio, arises from an absolute need for faith, from the quest for something to believe in, which is a testimony of love for humanity, trust in its becoming. It is this constant tension that saves Fabrizio's poetic world from the quicksands of nihilism, keeps him on the brink of total negation to prevent him from falling into it. As discouraged as his worldview may be, there is always the impulse to move forward, to seek further. As detached and renunciatory as his narrative may seem, it is easy to read between the lines an invitation to fight, a warning to become aware of reality in order to take other paths.

This, I think, is what the poor heroes of Fabrizio want to teach us, solitary champions of a humanity groping in the dark seeking light, too often victims of their own path, stumbling over the stones strewn across the roads of existence. For looking up, there is a risk of tripping: like Marinella, who dies at the very moment she discovers love; like Miché, a murderer for fear of losing his girl, a suicide for the despair of having lost her; like the soldier in «The Ballad of the Hero», who «too far / pushed himself to seek / the truth»; like Piero, killed among poppies by the ferocious fury of war just as he discovers in the womb of the latter the taste of an unexpected brotherhood: «And as you went with your soul on your shoulders / you saw a man at the bottom of the valley / who had your same mood / but the uniform of another color». And here we are at the theme of «homo homini lupus», the most unsettling aspect of Fabrizio De André's dissent against society. Man is not only a victim of his own mistakes or destiny.

He is especially a victim of others, of hypocrisy, hate, and the bad faith of others. So the faded courtesan, reminiscent of Stecchetti, in «Testament», forced to sell sacred images at the corner of a church because society leaves her no other means of subsistence; likewise, that character recounted in «The Gorilla», killed by the customary «justice» of men: «Screaming 'mama' like that fellow / whom the day before like a chicken / with a somewhat original sentence / had been beheaded. Death (of dreams, of love, of dignity). War, hate, the rot inside and around us.

These, then, are the stones that Fabrizio scatters along the path of his characters, to teach us to walk. They are the cornerstones of his sadness - and of his hope - as an artist deeply involved in reality. As a man who lives the lives of other men, immerses himself in them completely, and suffers them without alternatives, totally. The fact that, in expressing it, he often resorts to humor means nothing. His is a humor always open to the calls of the tragic, whether daily or not, with no desire to laugh: rather, the «nasty» sarcasm of Cecco Angiolieri. A sarcasm that is the alibi of bitterness, containing the infinite tension of restrained tears.

In summary, the Fabrizio record that most exposes the soul of the Troubadour.