“But I'm out of it, shouted the groom and then/everyone thought behind their hats/the groom has gone mad or he's drunk...”
...
Sometimes it feels like I'm in a giant game of goose where the dice is rolled by memory, and at each square, I sit half-dazed, missing a turn. I, I remember a lot of things.
The other day, for instance, I was thinking about me and my sister, and that afternoon when we happened to hear Alice on the radio for the first time, and then she widened her eyes, and I, well, I was struck.
Alice is one of those songs that there's a before and an after, like the great refusal of the groom neither I nor my sister had ever heard before.
Not to mention all those strange figures tossed and suspended in the air: the Arab beggar, Caesar lost in the rain, Lilì Marleen.
It ended with my sister buying this record, an anthology of the very first songs by Francesco De Gregori.
We then discovered the surreal nonsense of Niente da capire, the childhood dream of La casa di Hilde, the successful nightmare of Cercando un altro Egitto.
And even that guy who said, “Well, if you find any flowers in this story, they are yours.”
...
And so, in the end, a bit of sophistication arrived for us cavrones.
It was the first step out of a maze of splendid ignorance and, even if it sounded a bit unreal, it made sense. Like certain card castles that should fall but somehow never do.
…
Always running after a ball, in search of the number or the flicker. As kids, you want to be cool, especially if you're stupid, especially if you're male.
The ultimate was mastering verbal skirmishes, standing out amidst the teasing. And maybe even having the pinball record at the bar.
Then there was the world spied through the keyhole, but okay, let's leave that aside.
…
But can you tell how we had anything to do with sophistication? And why didn't we just spit in its face? Not to mention that this Francesco spoke strangely. And no one talks strangely in the native wild village.
What suited us was more down-to-earth stuff, Battisti who was visceral and a bit coarse, Mina with her “but the good thing is at the right moment you know how to become someone else.” Except the right moment never came.
The most we could do was figure out if we were more like Bob Rock or Count Oliver, or if we simply stood in the middle like Alan Ford. But it's also true that this was an issue not to delve into too much, hurting oneself before the time doesn't make much sense.
In short, it seemed that Francesco had almost nothing to do with us. Come here to the bar and tell us “Alice looks at the cats, and the cats look at the sun, then see what happens to you.”
...
And yet it didn't go like that. Maybe it was the seventies, maybe in some mysterious way we were growing up.
So in the end, with that discourse flowing clearly but remaining suspended, Francesco fascinated everyone.
And, in a world made only of commas and periods, came the question mark, exclamatory, and even those dots that usually are three.
Plus, all those cool things, like that of the groom. Or the guy who says: “but I didn't know it was a game, I can let you win and keep my life.”
Then, of course, we couldn't have known that in Francesco you found the most thorny Dylan sifted through grace. And, in a more cultured and surreal perspective, also Tenco and De André.
We were cavrones.
…
And anyway, for me, it was truly love.
Other maps, other coordinates, as if a world opened up for me
In some ways, and in a completely different direction, it was like with Cochi and Renato, two who seemed to have arrived from the moon and like Francesco spoke a new language...
It didn't last long, as little by little Francesco became like the others, first he became simple, simple, a strange freshness that enchanted. Then the mystery went away entirely, and I gave up. That's how certain loves go: all or nothing.
And when even today amidst the chaos it seems I see him, I immediately tell myself: you're mistaken, who you saw is not, is not Francesco...
But just someone who looks like him and who, for goodness' sake, also makes beautiful songs. But it's not him...
Can't be him...
Trallallà...
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