Fabrizio De André
Volume 1

I like to remember him like this: as a singer who revives the medieval minstrel, the Provençal troubadour. A minstrel with a sad look (and poetic nature). Volume 1 is the beginning of everything, the start of the journey into the human soul, into characters in which we can identify or that can move us. It was 1967 when the first official album of the greatest Italian singer-songwriter was released, who, let it be clear, is second to none and comparable to no one: this is an incontrovertible principle of faith.

The album begins in the most emotional and heart-wrenching way possible, "Preghiera in Gennaio," dedicated to Luigi Tenco. The poetic quality in this first track is very high, and there is a depiction of Paradise "where in broad daylight the stars shine"; just this song alone is worth buying the album, but fortunately, the masterpieces do not end here. "Marcia nuziale" seems to have the same sad and melancholic style of the previous song; here it speaks of a son witnessing the marriage of his parents, "after an engagement lasting so many years to call it now silver." Melancholy is by no means absent in the third track titled "Spiritual," a true spiritual experiment (very successful indeed) that De André unfortunately will not repeat in the future; a lively track that contrasts with the first two, really very interesting. "Si chiamava Gesù" brings us back to melancholic territories with an introduction where guitars embrace and create a chilling atmosphere; the theme of the song is indeed Jesus seen in the suffering of death "and he died as everyone dies, as everyone changing color," a death that was useless since evil on earth is still present and will always be; the image of Jesus "who whitened like a lily" gives goosebumps. It's time for the "Canzone di Barbara," a very brief song but one that leaves a mark on the listener; Barbara "plays with love joking with eyes and heart," here too melancholy is present, it is felt, and envelops the listener. "Via del campo" is a masterpiece of Italian songwriting, a little street in Genoa where it is possible to meet the marginalized, the last, the rejects of society: little girls with lips dewy-colored, prostitutes, lonely men... De André describes the characters of this story giving them a dignity that moves and, at the end of this work of art Fabrizio remembers "from diamonds nothing is born, from manure flowers grow"... nothing more is needed to describe this wonderful work. With a few tears of emotion, we move on and encounter "La stagione del tuo amore," a very sweet piece like few songs in Fabrizio's repertoire, sweetness that counterbalances the melancholy of previous tracks. The trumpet solo is fantastic, direct, emotional, and closes this fantastic song beautifully. "Bocca di rosa" is one of the most famous songs by De André, the theme is a prostitute arriving in a small town and disrupting the lives of men, all in love with her, making their wives cuckold; the song is composed of various verses but does not have a chorus, the chorus is instrumental and is "recited" by a village band. "Bocca di rosa" is thus "the ephemeral good of beauty" that the pastor wants with him in procession, contrasting "the sacred love with the profane love." "La Morte," although it has a macabre title, is a song that defining medieval is not an heresy; death is a friend of those who have lived alone, of those who have been poor, ragged; while it will be an enemy to those who in life in turn have killed and it won't be worth "striking it in the heart because death never dies." The last piece of this enveloping album is "Carlo Martello ritorna dalla Battaglia di Poitiers," this too seems like a minstrel’s song with medieval songs and terms, truly an unusual but still effective track, a strange way to close an album...

It is not surprising then if Fabrizio De André uses patterns and music that no one at the time was using; it is true that behind Fabrizio there is a solid culture, good readings, a dialogue with poets of the past. Fabrizio’s immense ability, beyond technical prowess, beyond being able to write, is the ability to describe lived events and transform them into tales, thus making these events no longer events but eternal stories, that will last forever. At the bottom of every De André song there is always the human. The human with his miseries and joys, his few victories and many defeats and, above all, with his inexhaustible need for love and hope. Fabrizio De André deserves credit for having been able to tell all this.