Giorgio Gaber
Io se fossi Dio

“If I Were God” is a 14-minute LP that Giorgio Gaber recorded in 1981. Now unavailable in stores, but easily downloadable from the Internet, it is a long invective that was ingloriously censored by both the right and the left. Since it is impossible to explain the song in a few lines, I thought the best thing was to transcribe it. Here it is:
 

If I were God...
and I could very well be,
otherwise I don't see who!
 
If I were God,
I wouldn't let myself be fooled by the sneaky ways of people,
I wouldn't be an amateur,
I would always be present!
I would really be everywhere, spying
or better yet criticizing
exactly what people do.
For example, the petty bourgeois,
how boring,
he never commits serious sins,
he is never intensely sinful.
Besides, poor thing, he's too petty and mean
and even knowing that God is more accurate than a Sveda
he thinks that a small mistake goes unnoticed or is not counted.
 
For this reason,
if I were God,
I would prefer the past century,
if I were God
I would miss the ancient fury,
where people hated, and then loved,
and killed the enemy!
 
But I am not yet
in the kingdom of heaven,
I am too entangled
in your ruins...
 
If I were God,
I wouldn't be so foolish
to believe only in the throbbing of the heart
or only in the distillations of reason.
 
If I were God,
I would certainly be very whole
and very detached
as you should be!
 
If I were God,
I wouldn't have saved,
I would have made a better man.
Yes, okay, I admit it
he didn't turn out so well,
and that's why, to preach righteousness,
that every now and then I send someone down,
but then people like to interpret
and it creates even more mess!
 
If I were God,
I wouldn't have made my son's mistakes,
and about love and charity
I would have explained myself better.
 
In fact, it is not normal
that a mere mortal
for silly things like compassion and hunger in India,
has so much spare love
that he's not even dreaming of,
which makes you say:
"But how can he be such a scumbag afterward?"
 
If I were God,
I wouldn't be reduced like you
and if I were, certainly I would die
for something important.
 
Unfortunately, the chance
to die nicely
doesn't always happen,
and even the most adventurous dies where it happens
and not convincingly.
 
If I were God,
I would do what I want,
I wouldn't be permissive,
I would beat my son,
I would be strict and just,
I would curse the English
as I was asked to,
and if I could
also the Africanists and Asia
and then the Americans and the Russians;
I would beat up the activism
like the mixed salad
and slap
the Voltaire enthusiasts, the thieves,
the stupid, and the bigots:
because God is violent!
And God's slaps
stick everyone to the wall!
 
But I am not yet
in the kingdom of heaven,
I am too entangled
in your ruins...
 
So far we've been joking!
But it ends up that someone
sooner or later gets a taste for it
and with the excuse of God, brings out
everything that seems right to them.
 
And to you, girl,
who tells me that it's not true
that the petty bourgeois
is just a bit foolish,
that that man is indeed a criminal,
a scoundrel, a pig in every sense, a rogue
and that he even tried to rape his daughter!
 
I, as an invented God,
as a fictional God,
take courage
and fire my judgment and say:
"Let's hope they shoot your father
in the ass, dear daughter!".
So for the newspapers, he becomes
a good family man.
 
If I were God,
I would really curse the journalists
and especially everyone,
who certainly are not good people
and where you strike, you always hit well.
Fellow journalists, you are too thirsty
and you don't know how to take advantage of the freedom you have,
you still have the freedom to think
but you don't do that
and in return, you demand the freedom to write,
and to photograph brilliant and interesting images,
of supportive presidents and crying mothers.
And in this Italy full of dismay
how brave you are, you who throw yourselves
without trembling for a moment:
cannibals, necrophiliacs, De Amicis-like and cunning,
and you seem really pleased.
You throw yourselves on the human disaster
with the taste for the tear in the foreground.
Yes, okay, I admit it
the disappearance of newspapers and the press
would perhaps be madness,
but if I were God,
faced with so much deficiency
I certainly wouldn't have the superstition of democracy!
 
But I am not yet
in the kingdom of heaven,
I am too entangled
in your ruins...
 
If I were God,
naturally, I would shut up a lot of people,
in the kingdom of heaven, I wouldn't want ministers
and party people “among the balls”,
because politics is disgusting
and harmful to the skin.
And all those who play this game,
which is a power game, it's repugnant and contagious
like leprosy and typhus,
and all those who play this game,
they have certain faces
that seeing them disgusts you,
whether they're greasy Christian Democrats
or gray comrades of the PC
They were born very ugly
or at least they all end up that way.
 
If I were God,
from the height of my throne
I would see that politics is a job like any other
and I would like to say, I think it's Plato,
that the politician is always less philosopher
and always more fool!:
he is a whole man
who without ever looking inside slides across the world,
who slides over words
even when it doesn't seem or doesn't want to.
 
Fellow radical,
the word fellow I don't know who gave it to you,
but deep down it suits you,
it's now disqualified,
fellow radical,
rider of every tiger, sly man
you move really well in this big mess
and while on one side they're shooting a bit at random
and on the other, they're filling the jails
with people who have nothing to do with it!
Fellow radical,
you deal with civil rights
and the idiocy that makes democracy
and prepare us for another referendum
this time to know
where dogs should pee!
 
Fellow socialists,
yeah, you too insinuating, cunning, and round,
fellow socialists,
with your carefree alliances
on the right, on the left, in the center,
with your updated men,
new on the outside and old on the inside,
fellow socialists step forward
because this is the year of the red carnation and the rising suns,
step forward with the myth of progress
and with your disgusting ambiguity!
Thank the rampant stupidity!
 
But I am not yet
in the kingdom of heaven,
I am too entangled
in your ruins...
 
If I were God,
I would no longer have patience,
I would invent a new morality
and I would sound the trumpets
for the Last Judgment.
 
You may ask why is my Last Judgment
my very personal Last Judgment so partial?
Why don't my trumpets sound
for the attacks, the kidnappings,
the young drug addicts, and the bombs?
Because the other side of the coin hasn't yet appeared.
I, as God, it's not that I don't feel like it,
I, as God, I don't say they're unjudgeable
or even, as those who fear say, the unnameable,
but as a man as I am and was
I've spoken about us, common mortals,
I don't understand the others,
they scare me, they don't seem equal.
Of them, I can only say
that from the masses they managed to obtain
the stupid pietism for the policeman,
of them, I can only say
that they took away the joy
of being personally angry.
I, as a man, can only say what I feel,
which is only the image of great dismay.
But if I were God
I would also be invulnerable and perfect,
then I wouldn't be afraid at all,
thus I could shout, and without restraint, I would shout that it's a disgrace,
that the militant brigadists have reached madness!
 
Here is the difference between us and the unnameable:
about us I can speak because I know who we are
and maybe we are more disgusting than scary,
but in the face of terrorism or those who kill themselves, there is only dismay.
 
But if I were God,
I wouldn't let myself be fooled by this dismay
and towards the politicians
I would be as strict as at the beginning,
because martyrs have never made God change His judgment.
 
And if my God still gets heated,
he is angry with those who shoot,
he is also angry at the fact
that any politician
if a brigadist has shot him,
becomes the only statesman.
 
If I were God,
that God I need like a mirage,
I would still have the courage to continue saying
that Aldo Moro along with the entire Christian Democracy
is the main responsible for twenty years of Italian decay.
 
If I were God,
an enormously wise unconscious God,
I would also have the courage to go straight to jail,
but I would like to say that Aldo Moro still remains
the face that he was!
 
But in the end, all this is stupid
because logically
if I were God,
I would see Earth rather from afar
and maybe I couldn't get heated up
in this daily clash.
 
If I were God,
I wouldn't care about hate or revenge
nor even about forgiveness
because distance is the only revenge
it is the only forgiveness!
 
And so
it turns out that if I were God,
I would retire to the countryside
like I did...