Francesco De Gregori
Francesco De Gregori

THE REVIEW

“Yesterday I met my ant, it told me I’m crazy! With deep dark circles and a hint of intoxication. I don’t remember what eyes you had the last time I insulted you, the last time I left you. But I was, I have been… where you never”

Two years after that fantastic debut, urgent in themes and rich in musical structures, which is “Alice Non Lo Sa” — 1972, here the Roman storyteller dedicates much more time to inner reflection, to the awareness of the growing human being who clashes with the world he is immersed in (“Informazioni Di Vincent”), in continuous antithesis, if not outright opposition, to the fairy-tale aura that always distinguishes him (“Dolce Amore Del Bahia”). Love stories never tell of a happy ending, but there is no anger, there is no hate… only the resignation of time passing, taking something away from us inside (“Bene”). And there is no hate even in the cold and surgical awareness of the devolution that humanity as a whole is undertaking, apparently without remedy (“Giorno Di Pioggia” and “Finestre Di Dolore”); but the poetry of the artist struggles not to overflow into the most introspective texts and erupts “violently” in the baroque “A Lupo” or the bohemian “Arlecchino” or in the ethylic sublimation of “Cercando Un Altro Egitto.” Of his “songbook” tracks, there is no trace here (except, perhaps, for “Niente Da Capire” that opens the album or “Souvenir” that closes it); but it is the work that fascinates De André, who will call him to collaborate for his “Volume 8” the following year.

Francesco De Gregori is a work conceived and packaged at night and for nighttime listening, at the table of a suburban tavern in the capital, accompanied by excellent wine and nurtured by a frugal snack of bread, cured meats, and cheeses... strictly local.

“it's an evening when the flower weighs on me and the stars keep their secrets, colder than ever”.