Gino Paoli
Matto come un gatto

I have to confess. This album (which is one of Paoli's most successful, one of his manifesto albums right from the title) is one of those I have always listened to less compared to a “L’ufficio delle cose perdute,” a “Il mio mestiere” or “King Kong”; at least until a few months ago. Also due to that drug called “Debaser” that morally obliged me to write about it (actually my nickname also derives from the fact that I am an incurable cat lover and I often see myself in some of their behaviors), I set out to listen to it again and understood.

Firstly, I understood the reason for all that success: Paoli here managed to find the classic balance between depth of content and accessibility, something that, for example, an “extreme” album like “Il mio mestiere” didn’t seek and didn’t want. And then I understood that it was the classic “right album at the right time”: it was 1991, fortunately, a different atmosphere from certain '80s was starting to be felt, and people were ready to cheer once again for a nonconformist, committed but not political author in the sense of the '70s Italian songwriting, edgy, often very reserved (how many times was he called aloof compared to his verbose colleagues) but extremely fascinating, also for all this.

Take for example the three “symbol” songs of the album and another less known one, namely, respectively, “Quattro amici,” “Matto e vigliacco,” “Un sorriso gratis” and “Saremo una canzone”: the healthy youthful idealism, the sacred desire to change the world that fades partially over the years but fortunately not for everyone and which, generation after generation, fortunately, is reborn and continuously renewed, the violent rejection of any kind of war decided by very few “bench referees who do not play the game and decide it themselves”, the importance of not isolating oneself if one doesn’t want to rot because “those who believe they can save themselves never save themselves alone, if you have no companions your road has no outlets to the sun” (did someone say “The Wall”?) and the importance that a simple human contact, even with a stranger, can have to make you rise (crying) from the mud you were swimming in just a moment before are the contents of these pieces that can be sung along to extremely simply despite the importance, seriousness, and depth of the themes.

Paoli, after years of always and anyway being “against”, simply understood that, to bring his poetic to many people, he had to convey it through simple and immediate texts and catchy music, being both “against” and “with”, as he himself said, without giving up a shred of his artistic dignity (a process actually already started with “La Luna e Il Sig. Hyde” on which dosankos has written a splendid review), indeed, if anything, gaining further, because appearing complicated is easy, while appearing simple is complicated; simplicity is a gift that a limited number of artists have, in any field: in the end, one would say, this is what Paoli has done in almost all his career, often even better in the purely artistic and qualitative sense of his offer, but in “Matto Come Un Gatto” he managed to find, essentially by chance, the form, the communicativeness, the synthesis, and the perfect historical moment to reach the large audience once again (“At concerts, I saw young girls screaming” said an incredulous Paoli during an interview).

It will be a moment because with the next (splendid) “King Kong”, sales will decrease significantly until, album after album, Paoli returns to that strange limbo of a recognized fundamental artist for Italian songwriting without ever having the media overexposure and success of many others: perhaps simply because of the success and acclamation of the crowd, to someone like Paoli (who attempted suicide, let's remember, at the peak of his career in the '60s and who lives with a bullet embedded in his body for 40/50 years because it would have been extremely dangerous to try to remove it, while where it was, it wouldn't bother him) didn't care an iota.

“And then I hurried back to my branch, alone, on my stomach to write songs, if people want them, I happily sing them, if they no longer want them, I will sing them to friends, […] to my love” (Paoli)