Ivan Graziani
La Città Che Io Vorrei

After the experience with Anonima Sound and some collaborations (Hunka Munka and especially Herbert Pagani), between 1973 and 1974 Ivan Graziani released three LPs, quite diverse from each other, which went unnoticed. Desperation and Tato Tomaso Guitars are interesting quirks mainly for the remarkable guitar skill displayed in tributes to the Beatles and 1950s rock'n'roll (in the former, sung in English) and in instrumental versions of some hits of the time (in the latter). Of greater depth is La città che io vorrei, the debut singer-songwriter album of the artist from Teramo.

In this album, based on voice and guitar, with evocative keyboard interventions by Roberto Carlotto (Hunka Munka), we already find themes, characters, and atmospheres recurring in Graziani’s works, an original minstrel of provincial life.

The central theme of the album is the sense of disappointment and disorientation felt by Graziani on his return, after years, to a profoundly changed Teramo, expressed in the song that gives the album its title, with idyllic images, autobiographical references, and a dreamy melody. In this provincial context, some "marginalized" characters, who live on dreams, are portrayed with amused melancholy: the vagabonds of Tom Sawyer, Nah Nah Nah and L’ubriaco (a reprise of a song written with Pagani, Les tapis roulants) and especially the cripple who dreams of love in Campo della fiera, a portrait of a vanished Italy, where tin toys and roosters are sold.

Another theme is the passage to adulthood, described with fairy-tale tones in L'età gratis and with vivid imagery in A volte in primavera (already appeared in Desperation as Sometimes Maryanna, this is the most complex track on the album, with its sudden rhythm changes transforming a Beatles-like slow song into a wild boogie).

Luisa, strangled by her lover for being too perfect, in a story told with naivety and black humor, instead inaugurates the gallery of female portraits and "shady stories".

Rather atypical are Colori (with a visionary text and an intense vocal interpretation) and Situazione (a self-ironic and retro blues, recounting disastrous attempts to take care of household chores while the wife is in the hospital to give birth).

To conclude the album, the excellent Chiusura, embellished with a solemn organ solo by Carlotto, in which the Abruzzese singer-songwriter describes the sunset descending on the city, its people, and its dreams.

For years ignored by the public and critics (and little considered by Graziani himself), La città che io vorrei, despite its limitations (still unripe lyrics, albeit not trivial, and rather poor production), deserves reevaluation for its genuineness and for the excellent guitar technique showcased by its author, who laid the foundations of an unmistakable style here, which would receive due recognition in the following years.