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When a free spirit leaves us, one has the unpleasant feeling of losing a support, a point of reference, in short, a part of us: it happened with De André and inevitably it happened again with Gaber, even for those like myself, who considered him a sort of Dario Fo of song, someone more appropriate to see in the theater than to listen to. Only to be proved wrong by albums like this one, where even the music is more than decorous, at times truly enjoyable, while still remaining in the background to Gaber's words, which are the essence. The old associate Jannacci used to say, with disconnected verses like him: "then it will be even more beautiful... when the toilet is silent... when Gaber speaks." It seems like delirium, but it’s an insight: when Gaber speaks, the effect is the opposite of that of advertising, in which even toilets speak, satisfied if treated with the right descaler.
Gaber speaks to us, always without mincing words, "without ifs and buts," articulating the syllables and sarcastically declaiming what collective hypocrisy never allows us to say, ruthlessly uncovering "the monsters we have inside." The title of this testament-album should not deceive: the satire against the cheap patriotic fervor with which they are trying to brainwash us is confined only to the funny little march that gives the album its title (and after all, what is the glorious Hymn of Mameli, if not a funny little march?). The common thread actually concerns a much broader field than narrow little Italy: it is an impassioned declaration of non-belonging to the Single Thought, the one in which "Everything is false, the false is everything,” as obsessively repeated in the track that opens the album. Anyone who thinks that the world, following only the laws of the market and image, will head towards self-destruction, preceded by a progressive barbarization, can subscribe to these words, but the way Gaber knows how to present them is unique. In fact, there are many ways: without any glimpse of hope ("Everything is false," "The monsters we have inside") or with moderate trust in a possible salvation, as in "Do not teach the children," which invites us not to contaminate even future generations with the prevailing "morality" and "If there were a man," which not by chance closes the album with uncertain faith in a new kind of humanity that will have to inhabit a space which (for now) is irreparably empty.
There is also room for the analysis of human feelings, which despite everything still exist: "The dilemma" is the story of two lovers who take their own lives as soon as they realize that their love no longer makes sense, and here Gaber, despite his detached tone as an external observer, manages to move us against his will; "The illogical joy," those ever-more necessary moments when one finds oneself with oneself, outside the useless chatter that should give us the most logical joy; "The word I," a warning against narcissism, which tempts us from a young age with the sweet sound of this word but then risks leading us adrift toward a delirious megalomania, well represented by the finale. Another injection of healthy irony is "The corrupt," a portrait of a person schizophrenically divided between common morality and more natural urges, featuring a slightly irreverent but delightful rhyme ("Strangely on this theory I agree with the Pope... but that one arouses me"). In short, if thinking doesn't scare you, if the Average Italian on television frightens you a little bit (because he really seems like an idiot) this album is for you.
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