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Rating: Facing the filth of the world, narrating it with simple words, almost elementary concepts, yet going deep, or even finding oneself in the darkest depths of the human soul. Used to Faber's baroque language, at first Dalla surprised me, with the syntactic constructions and popular lexicon. Then I encountered this album and understood everything.
Lucio narrated the misery of humanity, but unlike Fabrizio, he did not necessarily want to find a poetic, ennobling key. No, here one wallows in despair together with the downtrodden. Among so much tangible humanity, almost theatrically present, that incredible pinnacle stands out that gives the album its title.
The song Come è profondo il mare tells much more; through a fragmented narrative, almost incomprehensible to the inattentive listener, it writes a treatise on humanity, society, the relentless mechanisms of human ferocity. Thus in this instance, Lucio is not a storyteller, he is a philosopher, because he starts from the particular and goes to the general, from the stories he derives an overall vision.
Teetering between disgust for the socio-political processes of human history and ecstasy for the inexhaustible richness of existence, the infinite teeming of life of the humble, the song amazes even and especially for its ability to reduce high, complex, general concepts to immediate images. A very elastic, instinctive language, always figuratively rich, almost like a single great synesthesia where the senses mix. After all, when you hear that "they are burning the sea," you understand that one must not stop at the cloying distinctions of realism; here "the dead are resurrected," and the poor are left "alone in the middle of the sea." Fish begin to think and even the wall of water that protects them is no longer safe because "they are bending the sea."
Dalla's humanity is reckless, rascally, surreal. Willing to trade a child for "a kilo of bread and a flask of wine." But there is always a way out, not so much real, imaginative. So the father "takes a stick in his hand and begins to fly" (Treno a vela).
Even more delightful when to the misery of spirit, of the poor but especially of the bourgeoisie, is added the distorting mirror of prejudices, gossip, unwarranted, a priori mistrust, based on perhaps racial preconceptions ("he must be a Slav"). In this sense, many politicians and people today should listen to Corso Buenos Aires. A poisonous distillation of distortions of reality, a continuous juxtaposition of highly distorting facts and interpretations. A masterpiece of linguistic virtuosity, without using a single difficult word. Which then derails into a surreal finale, like a farce, like a row among tramps (inside or outside). The patrol car that "doesn't brake and causes a massacre," "a butcher and a tobacconist who hadn't spoken to each other for years took advantage of the confusion to shoot each other a few shots." A little picture like Verga's verismo, filtered with an almost psychedelic perspective, which disguises an infinite melancholy in images that are somewhat folkloric, somewhat rascally ("let's have a grappa too!"), somewhat surreal.
After so many songs about Faber's prostitutes, I remember Disperato erotico stomp shocked me from the very first listen. For two reasons: here sex, perversions, and mania are not those of bumbling professors or a distant Carlo Martello, but of the author himself. This fact amplifies them enormously. And also the language: "the skirt right up to the hair," "your friend, the tall one, great pussy." In so much color, which is already memorable in the land of Sanremo, the existential focus of the piece is laid out. If "the exceptional feat is to be normal," it means that humanity is made up of thousands, millions of different exceptions: no one is normal, everyone is deviant, and thus deviance is the real "normality." In light of Lucio's homosexuality, the song takes on even stronger meaning.
These are the strongest songs on the album, or those I am most attached to. In the others, perhaps melancholy is more tangible, in the sounds and rhythms, in the atmospheres and even in the words. The other tracks are amazing too, eh. Quale allegria is deadly, lyrics that are salt on the wounds of each of our daily lives. The Pirandellian masks that each of us wears. "Leaving early in the morning, the head full of thoughts, dodging cars, newspapers, rushing home, for today is like yesterday." The bleak vision of everyday life is exposed here, but one cannot call the songwriter a pessimist because his is an anti-cathartic reading. The filth of living is not only cyclical, it is also necessary: "Being forced to hurt oneself even to be able to gently forgive and continue." Beautiful live version in the second disc.
In such overflowing misery, the ending is reserved for hopes, desires. Which are humble, of course: the escape to an island, not too far, and a few things: "a dog, a secure plate, and a fiery woman" (Barcarola). Certainly, it is not up to me to reiterate the beauty of the album. I close with a few words on this Legacy Edition released last week. The remastered tracks highlight some musical textures that before were too much in the background, the music is more three-dimensional. The second disc of concert performances is not boring at all because the live versions are eclectic and very different from the studio ones; some tracks seem almost transfigured. Definitely a sensible purchase, if anything.
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