Ivan Graziani
Pigro

When I insist on the immense value that a singer-songwriter has in society, instinctively, I think of Ivan Graziani. That guitarist who asked his God for a bit of special attention, and who didn't receive it. Ivan Graziani was born in Teramo on October 6, 1945, and left us too soon on January 1, 1997, in Novafeltria, where he lived with his family. Discreet in life, and even at the point of death, he always let his songs, his masterpieces, and his guitar—which he played with a familiarity that was, at times, disarming—do the talking. Masterpieces, indeed, which he unveiled in 1978 with his sixth album: "Pigro." It is probably the highest point reached by the artist from Teramo, which rightfully places him in the pantheon of Italian singer-songwriters. It contains eight stories of lives shattered by mental laziness and indolence, as can be seen in the tracks "Pigro," "Monna Lisa," "Paolina," and "Gabriele D'Annunzio." This album, which alone is worth more than a hundred Roberto Vecchionis, sparked a chain reaction for the birth of a new genre on the Italian music scene; in fact, Ivan Graziani can be defined as the first rock singer-songwriter, along with that other great devil, Edoardo Bennato. The song "Pigro," which gives its name to the album of the same name, is a flash of absolute genius and musically perfect. The text is concise, incisive, and extraordinarily poetic. The music perfectly supports the entire structure of the piece, creating a perfect blend of hostile and reassuring, warm and cold sounds. At times lyrical, but not pathetically juvenile like some hardliners who crowded the country's music scene in those years, at times sharply enigmatic, he had an innate inclination for portrayals of female figures. A striking example, indeed, is "Paolina": it is a sweet, melancholic, lyrically perfect portrait that embodies the dual identity of the Abruzzese artist. He could make you cry, carve ever deeper and more devastating grooves within you, and at the same time make you wrack your brain with some of the most varied and transversal reflections. A totemic genius, he was the only singer-songwriter who managed to create poetry with a thirty-second solo (Olanda) and to write songs about men reading on the toilet (Io che c'entro). He absorbed the belonging of his audience, that sense of pride that any Ivan Graziani lover had and fortunately continues to have. He has framed in the collective imagination of everyone, pearls of unimaginable beauty like "Fuoco sulla collina," "Ivette senza tette," "Agnese dolce Agnese." And then more heart-wrenching tracks like "Firenze (canzone triste)," "Lugano addio," and "Signorina." Forgotten by this country, or at least insufficiently remembered, which burns everything so quickly and erases from the annals of its conscience the men who contributed to making it illustrious and, certainly, better. "Pigro" is an album free from any ideology, which is not the private property of anyone, not even of Ivan. And it is an album that strongly criticizes the boom of progressive rock that was happening at the time, so alluring from an aesthetic point of view but so repulsive in terms of content (Al festival slow folk di b-milano). Another flash of genius is the album cover. By Mario Convertino, which depicts a pig with the classic red-rimmed glasses worn by Graziani, it won the cover of the year award. "A guitarist must die on stage, in front of his people." This was Ivan Graziani.