Lucio Dalla
Ciao

THE REVIEW

Hello, it's already post-coitus. Astral, visionary, melancholic, desperate, stomp coitus. Yet there is still much gold that shines in this late 90s long play. If "Non vergognarsi mai" is a crafty piece that in turn mimics "Tu non mi basti mai," if "Io tra un'ora sono lì" resembles a track by Gemelli Diversi (but the Ragno needs to change: always!), if "Scusa" is the title of a stretched-out ballad that seems to ask for the listener's forgiveness, if the new version of "1999" could have been dispensed with (the original is already a masterpiece), if "Trash" is the usual ungrammatical fun of the Bolognese, what's left? Not much remains, but that little is already a lot.

"Ciao" is a mantra, a word repeated so much that it loses meaning and continually regains it, it speaks of war and vacations passing like sand through fingers, amid a consumeristic, indulgent, and essentially boiled indifference. "Là" poses final questions before the universe like "La canzone della bambina portoghese" by Guccini, except it is more emotional and less cerebral, pure Dalla style. "Trapiantoperso" is a heartfelt cry of dismay and pain, it's the moment of surrender to life; in the lyrics, there's another ciao, but it's a more defined ciao, a goodbye to the irregularity of living. "Born to be alone" is solitude, the challenge of a man to authority and deities. Finally, "Hotel" is, alongside "Ciao," the other masterpiece of the album. Little known, but beautiful, painful, restless, gray, liberating. Dalla has changed again, and some no longer like him. But maybe he did it for fun, or maybe for love.