Lucio Dalla
Automobili

1976. "Automobili". In the aftermath of "Anidride Solforosa," Lucio Dalla and Roberto Roversi decided to embark on an ambitious musical and theatrical project centered on the reality of the automobile; the Bolognese duo worked diligently on crafting a product that, well-received in theaters across Italy by critics and audiences, had to contend with the tedious principles of contemporary censorship, suffering the cautious intervention of RCA which slashed its structure by removing two tracks in their entirety, Automobili, indeed, and Il Futuro dell'Automobile, deemed too politicized. Dalla was barely forced to bend to the recording laws, while the passionate Roversi cried scandal, and in response withdrew his signature from the now-altered album, presenting himself under the pseudonym "Norisso".

"Automobili" is, despite everything, a small masterpiece. The most fresh and immediate work by the two Bolognese artists, it stands out not only for Roversi's spirited content but also for Lucio's happy musical intuitions, the wild riff of Nuvolari, the variations on the theme of Mille Miglia, the icy musical expression of Il Motore Del 2000. It is an enlightened record, clearly divided among past, present, and future, centered on the precarious condition of modern man expressed through the means of locomotion par excellence, that automobile which, after having seen the champion of the "Mille Miglia," is now slowly sucking the individual into the vortex of industrial progress, leaving him no way of redemption or participation.

The past.
The myth of Nuvolari, of the splendid and long Mille Miglia that kept Italians with the “devoured heart” as national champions, in the aftermath of the devastation of the Great War, ran from Verona to Brescia, from Bologna to Terni with care and courage. Tazio Nuvolari, the legendary racing champion from 1930-1948, is the emblem of the courageous individual still living in the civilization of aretè, of valor, the image of the common man who dominates the automobile through it and for whose triumph the name of the team or the engine of the car doesn't matter: what matters is the name of the effort, of the passion, of the thousands of kilometers traveled, what matters is the name of Tazio Nuvolari. The champion, however, must already begin to succumb to the whims of uncertain technological progress, risking its dangers with all the resulting consequences, even mortal ones: during a race in Verona battered by "water, hail, and wind," Nuvolari skidded, risking his neck; he would rise again like "the lizard is reborn," beating the Varzis, the Camparis, the Fagiolis, the Ascaris: the triumph.

The present.
The automobile no longer an element of redemption but of subjugation, of depersonalization. In the apocalyptic traffic jam of the eponymous song, we no longer distinguish the great names of motor racing, but simply functional individuals like engineers, nuns, soldiers, indistinct men and women. There now appears an attention toward the brand, the name of the car: if before the reference to Nuvolari’s "red Alfa" seemed more than marginal in the context of the discourse, now the names of Volkswagen, Peugeot, Simca parade meticulously, monstrous containers of stateless individuals prone to the demon of traffic that the civilization of the automobile has created. Thus, in the most precarious turmoil, here appears The Interview with the Lawyer, the inquiry into the imminent future of the automobile, of man and the environment through the discussion about the foundries of Crescentino and the factories of Volvera. Needless to say, there is no response from the Lawyer, indeed, Dalla with impeccable histrionics puts into Agnelli's mouth a presumed English dialect which is nothing more than an incomprehensible scat song.

The future.
"The engine of 2000 will be beautiful and bright / it will be fast and silent / it will be a delicate engine / it will have a calibrated exhaust and an odor that does not pollute / it can be inhaled by a boy or a girl". Great prospects. But amid the prevailing optimism, here comes the problem of defining the next outcome of man: "We know everything about the engine / this bright engine of the future / but we cannot draw the heart / of that young man of the future": what will become of the heroes of past motor races, what especially will become of the humble larvae inside Volkswagen, Peugeot, Simca. What will become of them? Everything seems to foreshadow a negative outcome, albeit not well-defined, to the now unstoppable process of individual alienation from the technological element, to the overpowering of the mechanical monster over human aretè: automobiles as both the object and subject of the discourse. In the prevailing pessimism, here appears the only true glimpse of redemption which is neither liberation nor solution: the Two Boys sitting on a scrapped car, lovers immersed in the context of the small dramas of their relationship, choose to return to the recovery of their own personality through the search for the "other"; overcoming the obstacle constituted by the vainglorious empire of the automotive image, they elect as the niche of their intimacy a scrap car, a proud sneer at the civilization of the automobile, whose greatest consideration is the use of the seating.

At the end of the presentation of the work, Dalla and Roversi will decide to amicably end their collaboration following the aforementioned divergence over the acceptance of recording censorship norms; the bitterness will remain for a while: the beat Lucio Dalla, author of cultured works of social reflection, will not return, and will leave in the showcase of genre enthusiasts these only three precious works, unmistakable signs of a class that will not disappear over time.

(End)