Francesco Tricarico
Tricarico

The truth is that love burned me. The truth is that I have not loved. The truth is that music saved me.

In these simple three phrases taken from the song “Musica,” there is Francesco Tricarico, an Italian singer-songwriter from Milan, orphaned by his father at a young age (as evidenced in the autobiographical song “Io sono Francesco”).

The truth is that Francesco saved music. When his first single was released in 2000 (namely “Io sono Francesco”), the success was immediate, but when, 2 years later, he released his self-titled debut album, even though it became a platinum record, the subsequent singles did not achieve the success of the first.

It's as if people were satisfied with the catchphrase (promptly censored on the radio) “Puttana puttana, puttana la maestra”.

It's a pity because here we have a great songwriter, possibly the best of his generation.

An album of innocence, truth, and simple poetry, without rhetorical figures, without rhymes, with verses that sometimes, naively, do not fit the meter.

Francesco is a never-grown child, shy, imaginative, wonderful: and so, in 12 tracks, he unfolds his life, between reality and fantasy. Visionary lyrics, sometimes disconnected, like a child’s random way of describing something, overwhelmed by joy; the music is mainly electronic, but with the inclusion of classical instruments, especially strings.

It results in a great album, probably his masterpiece.

Side A, with its 6 pieces, is perhaps one of the most beautiful sequences I have ever heard since the days of Astral Weeks. It begins with the fast melody of “Il Caffè” where the abstract character of this work is already delineated: “Equinox of September and I am still on Pluto.”

The next track, “Musica", is perhaps the most autobiographical track (along with the aforementioned first single) and tells of a child from Mars, who watched life unfold in its alternating daily gestures, while listening to the record player sing. And this record player, this music, saved him, kept him alive, meant a reason worth living for: to invent (as he says in “Occhi blù”) music, thereby having accomplished something before leaving this planet and reincarnating as a flower.

As if to say that in life, no mistake or negative event can ruin your existence. It can certainly mark it: this is what he says in the aforementioned "Io sono Francesco”, his most famous single, where he opens up, telling how a simple class assignment on his father (an aviator who disappeared when Francesco was 3) can transform a joyful child into a sad one, who takes refuge in his fantasy on a white sheet, white like a void for 20 years in his head.

The continuation is of an exemplary sonic coherence, so much so that one almost feels they are dealing with a concept album. It ranges from more cheerful songs (the single “La pesca”) to songs with strong themes, such as prostitution (the magnificent “Aereoplano Giallo”), without missteps, conveying emotions and poetry.

An exemplary work and, given the music of the last decade, remains one of the best Italian albums in recent times. Perhaps it's better to listen to this Tricarico rather than trying to recount it, because as he says, you have to be careful with words; they can be dangerous.

In short, this album is like a public psychoanalysis session, a way to exorcise one's fears and doubts, to open up Francesco's mind to the world, to give a spark of hope to all the children like him, to seek “normality”, sweeping away an unhappy childhood: and he does so by creating a world of his own, to replace the real one.

The father is just a man, and there are many men; choose the best, follow him and learn.

Unpleasant memories remain so as long as they are remembered; it is better, therefore, to replace them with a perfect and fantastic world.