Francesco De Gregori
Calypsos - 9 canzoni nuove

De Gregori has always been an artist above many things, indifferent to trends yet also distant from those who find in rejecting them a reason for living. In other words, he has always cared much more about artistic creation as such than the surroundings. He has also been quite generous with surprises, starting from '77 (when, after the famous protest at Palalido, he withdrew from singing to return a year later with a beautiful album), passing through when he said he would no longer sing his old hits, and arriving at when, a few years ago, he said that his record releases would become sparse over the years. But instead, a year after Pezzi – the album that was supposed to mark his definitive turn towards a rock song form that, above all opinions, is objectively inferior to the brilliance of his intimate and visionary songwriting – he returns with this Calypsos, a "dreaming and dreamt" album, born and recorded quickly in his house in Umbria. And in this case, the surprises are even two: the first, as already mentioned, is the album itself, totally unexpected; the second is the songs, almost all oriented towards the reserved atmospheres of his first albums.

The album comes with a white and minimalist cover, a tribute to the last albums of Battisti in collaboration with Panella, even if, as he says, "in this album there isn’t the kind of break with the past that Battisti intended to represent with the white covers." And it is not a masterpiece, as many voices are claiming: it is a very good album, quite melodic and less commercial than Pezzi. But let's talk about the songs. "Cardiologia," the lead single, is a heart-stopper: few times has De Gregori failed when he presents himself piano-voice, and he doesn’t do so now either. Airy melody – with very slight echoes of "Il cuoco di Salò" in the chorus and "Bufalo Bill" in a key change – and lyrics that speak of love as an entity unto itself, expressive and sacred ("That gathers shells / after the storm / when the sky is still dark / but the night is over / and grinds the sand / inside the windmills / and never has a hurry / and never has time"). Truly a great song. La casa is almost a nursery rhyme but has a non-trivial melody; it speaks of transience, of the inevitable end that accompanies all things before intervening and making them collapse. The text is splendid ("I build this house / without beginning and without end / like the sun at noon / when it sets the hills on fire").

L’angelo, declared filler composed because "eight songs were too few", is a strange song, a calypso about the angel of death who arrives without threats, even offering drinks. In onda is the masterpiece of the album: liquid and suspended melody reminiscent of his Atlantide (from 1976), it is a song with uncertain meanings and was born all at once, "as if it had been written by someone else who gifted it to me." Francesco's voice here moves, risking and winning in high tones that haven’t appeared in his records since the first album. Per le strade di Roma, La linea della vita, and Tre stelle are the weak points of this album. The first offers a non-trivial look at the capital, but the music never takes off, though the sound of the mini-moog, never used before by the singer-songwriter, is pleasant. The second has a more lively and carefree rhythm compared to the others, composed in tercets and weighed down by female choruses. The third has the excuse of being an evident divertissement, a carefree country tune that talks about a love like Minnie and Mickey Mouse, lived in a three-star hotel, aiming to lighten the perspective on love, treated certainly in a different manner in the other tracks. Mayday could be an outtake from Pezzi, a pleasant rock track partially indebted to Dire Straits. Nevertheless, L’amore comunque will likely be the second single, it’s a song of devotion towards love accompanied by a very inspired melody, especially in the chorus, a brilliant literary find ("queen of time / of sand and glass / of the end of all numbers / and from the end of the alphabet").

Really a nice surprise from this De Gregori album, from which one cannot ask to equal the miracles of his beginnings but which has shown that he can still compose inspired and original melodies, a perfect accompaniment for evocative drifts and clear images. Rating: 7.5