Lucio Dalla
Storie di casa mia

In 1971, Lucio Dalla released his third album, "Storie di casa mia," with all that dazzling and blinding yellow on the cover. At the time, he was already 28 years old and, although certainly not unknown, having already released two albums ("1999" in 1966 and "Terra di Gaibola" in 1970) and participated twice in the Sanremo Festival (with "Paff...bum!" in 1966 and "Bisogna saper perdere" in 1967), he was surely not very famous, as neither the Sanremo appearances nor the cited albums had left a significant mark. His desire to acquire more recognition and popularity is evident in this work, perhaps due to being tired of being considered "niche." This desire can already be inferred in the slew of collaborators recruited for the occasion: for the lyrics, we have Gianfranco Baldazzi and Sergio Bardotti, except for "Lucio dove vai," whose text is solely by Bardotti, and "Un uomo come me," "Il bambino di fumo," "Il gigante e la bambina," and "4/3/1943," for which the lyrics are by Paola Pallottino, a future lecturer at the University of Bologna. All the music is by Dalla himself, except for "Strade su strade," which is credited to Lally Stott; the arrangements are handled by the brothers Guido and Maurizio De Angelis (future members of the Oliver Onions group, which would later compose many soundtracks for Bud Spencer-Terence Hill films as well as theme songs for highly successful television series like "Sandokan" and "Zorro"), except for "Il gigante e la bambina" and "4/3/1943," which were arranged by Ruggero Cini. As one might have guessed, at the time, Lucio was not yet a full-fledged singer-songwriter, but simply (so to speak) composed the music, except for a couple of sporadic previous occasions where he had at least collaborated on writing the text ("Cos'è Bonetti" and "Non sono matto o la capra Elisabetta"). His transformation into a total singer-songwriter would only occur starting in 1977 with the album "Com'è profondo il mare." Another sign of Lucio's desire to reach a wider audience can also be seen in the musical structure of the songs, much more "sweetened" compared to the past, where frequent scat improvisations dominated, mainly due to the author's jazz-clarinet training. However, even in this work, fortunately according to the author, there are exceptions.

The author's intention to reach a wider audience with this album can be said to be substantially achieved, as it contained some tracks destined to become Dalla's evergreens. Starting from the opening track, "Itaca," where Ulysses' journey is recounted from the perspective of a simple sailor, certainly different from that of his commander: "Captain, who has in your eyes your noble destiny, do you ever think of the sailor who lacks bread and wine? Captain, who has found princesses in every port, do you ever think of the rower whom his wife believes dead?" But despite everything: "Captain, who solves every venture with cunning, do you remember a soldier who each time gets more afraid? But even fear in the end always gives me a strange taste: if there is still a world, I'm ready, where do we go?" Some have even compared this song to Dante and Brecht: because the cited ending is definitely Dantesque, as it refers to the desire, which also pervades Ulysses' "poor" companions, to continue the journey to explore new worlds despite their immense fear ("Ye were not made to live as brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge"). But it seems that later Dalla, in some of his live performances, had changed these final verses to the following: "But if you don't take me home, Captain, I'll shred you." This alternative ending is instead much closer to Brecht's thinking, which condemned the idea of death as a heroic act. Perhaps even for Lucio this dilemma was an unresolved issue, even though he himself explained in the live album "Bologna 2 settembre 1974" that the song "Itaca" metaphorically alluded to the rebellion of the proletariat (the sailors) against the industrialists (Ulysses). But even in this case, it would evidently have always been an unresolved issue for the author, given the two alternative endings (does the proletarian's fate remain one of always and unconditionally obeying his "captain," or should he instead rebel to demand his sacred rights)? If this last interpretation, provided by the author himself, is taken in good faith, perhaps the meaning of the chorus present in the piece can also be better understood, which reads as follows: "Itaca, Itaca, Itaca, I have my home only there; Itaca, Itaca, Itaca, and home is where I want to return from the sea, from the sea, from the sea." It seems, in fact, that this chorus, generically referred to in the album as "Coro popolare," was performed and recorded by the RCA record company's employees on the day of the annual company party held to award the most deserving, and thus they were all quite inebriated, not to say absolutely drunk. Many attribute to this piece the flaw of using this chorus defined as "tacky": given its skewed-tipsy-drunken character, it can almost be taken as a compliment!

Another piece in the album destined to remain fairly famous (although perhaps more in Ron's version released that same year than in Dalla's) is "Il gigante e la bambina." Initially, it was interpreted by the audience as a little fairy tale for children, perhaps also complicit with the sweet and gentle music accompanying it. But the RAI censors were of a completely different opinion almost immediately and forced the author, Paola Pallottino, to modify the verse "but the giant now stands with his sword of love, and while crying cuts the flower before it is trampled" into "but no one can wake them from that so light sleep: the giant is a mountain, the girl now is snow." As revealed by Ron much later in an interview, in fact, the song referred to a macabre event that really happened: "the song recounted a rape by a gardener who violated a girl; the madness of the character was intended to be conveyed, who cried because he truly believed he obeyed an amorous impulse towards the poor girl; I was 18 and it might have seemed like an innocent fairy tale, but Paola Pallottino wrote the lyrics inspired by a news event occurring near Bologna, the rape of a minor. I realized that the song was a ticking bomb only after RAI's partial censorship. It was the early seventies, and not even the media willingly talked about certain issues." But the very attentive RAI censors, as mentioned, had already realized in advance what the song was actually about: rape, pedophilia, depravity, nothing like a little fairy tale for children! Another piece destined to become an evergreen is "La casa in riva al mare": a touching and melancholic song, even from the musical perspective, whose lyrics recount the story of a prisoner, probably serving a life sentence, who looks out of his cell every day and from there sees, beyond the endless sea, a white house where a woman, whom he gives the imaginary name Maria, lives, and whom he falls in love with just by watching her, to the point of imagining marrying her once released from prison. However, his desire will never come true, as he will die before leaving the prison, as evidenced by the ending, "And the years passed, all the years together, and his eyes now see no more. He still said, you are my woman, and then was alone in the middle of the blue. I'm coming to you, Maria": the drama of solitude! In my opinion, it's one of the most beautiful songs ever in Italian music, nothing more to add.

And then, of course, there's "4/3/1943," presented at that year's Sanremo Festival paired with Equipe 84, Dalla's first real big hit, destined to become one of the most famous songs ever in Italian music (although initially, this piece was not included in the album but was added in later reissues by popular demand). In this case, censorship fell like a blade on the lyrics, once again by Paola Pallottino, evidently used to "getting into trouble" with her writings for Dalla. Firstly, it was required to change the song's title from "Gesùbambino" (just like that, all together) to, indeed, "4/3/1943," Lucio Dalla's birth date. And then: "he recognized me right the last month" turned into "he waited for me as a gift of love from the very first month," "she played at being the Madonna with the baby to swaddle" became "she played at being a woman with the baby to swaddle," and especially "and even now that I curse and drink wine, for thieves and whores, I am the Baby Jesus" changed to "and even now that I play cards and drink wine, for the harbor people, I'm called Baby Jesus." Naturally, in subsequent live versions of the piece, the thieves, the whores, the curses, the Madonna, and the last month all returned to their place. The fact that this song was titled with the singer-songwriter's birth date led many to think it was autobiographical. Although not entirely so, there's some truth to it, as Pallottino, regarding this piece, stated the following: ""Gesùbambino" was meant to be my ideal compensation to Lucio for being an orphan since the age of 7. It was supposed to be a song about the absence of the father, but then it became a song about the absence of the mother." Hence, we could define it as a semi-autobiographical piece. Another semi-famous piece is "Un uomo come me," in this case with lyrics by Pallottino, which in some way anticipated the themes of the song that Dalla would bring to the following year's Sanremo Festival with much greater success, "Piazza Grande." Just reading some verses makes this clear: "A man like me drinks wine when he's thirsty, asks for bread from his neighbor when he's hungry," "A man like me has a wolf in his heart: you hear it howl, but don't believe in love." Both songs referred to the "borderline" and slightly bohemian life of the protagonist, which in fact, under some viewpoints, was also somewhat the type of life Lucio was leading at that time. Thus, also in this piece, very beautiful in the author's opinion, could be defined as semi-autobiographical.

The other tracks from the album evidently haven't withstood the test of time, both the more musically "sweetened" ones, namely "Per due innamorati" (which narrates the story of two lovers killed in the war before fulfilling their desire to marry), "Strade su strade" (that describes the desire to escape from one's daily reality, destined to remain as such since "Streets on streets, none that ever goes beyond this dying city"), and "L'ultima vanità" (in which a woman boasts of having given a disappointed man the last vanity, lying); and the more experimental ones, namely "Il bambino di fumo," "Il colonnello," and "Lucio dove vai." But in the latter three pieces mentioned, unlike the previous three (which nevertheless are by no means worthless), there is true genius, in my opinion. In "Il bambino di fumo," the theme of environmental pollution is addressed figuratively, with the protagonist "grasping only manes of mist" and breathing "only smog." The piece's finale is one to frame, with the smoke child now grown into a smoke boy, who is addressed by another person in an improbably Neapolitan dialect. However, the scat style that Lucio had accustomed listeners to until then returns forcefully in the other two tracks. In "Il colonnello," we deal with, indeed, a colonel who, in a sort of increasing frenzy, also highlighted by an increasingly "mad" vocal tone, rails against "ragged people lying in the streets, blacks, the mafia, drugs, the defeatists, communists, the pederasts, and the rabble that becomes increasingly more scoundrel." The album's closing track, "Lucio dove vai," I consider a successful self-psychic session, which I think everyone has needed at least once in their life. According to Baldazzi, "the text well narrates the confusion I had tried to solve with the help of a psychoanalyst before to untangle that intricate web of emotional, passionate, intellectual, sexual, and familial threads that kept me tied up. So I resolved to lie down on the psychoanalyst's couch, something completely unthinkable in Bologna back then. It was yet another disappointment: the dribblings, the lies, the repeated repressions at the first session displeased the doctor who promptly got rid of him, sending him to a colleague. Lucio then changed to another analyst once again, and after the second session concluded the experience. The specialist had a clear idea of the situation and told Dalla that in his opinion, he had no intention of resolving his problems. And perhaps he was right because Lucio, growing older, had learned to live with his ghosts, with his visions, creating, especially through music, his personal reality distortion field." In fact, it seems that, back then, Lucio had slightly eccentric behaviors, like going to the movies with friends and causing a commotion the whole time, going on stage in underwear, wearing cherries as earrings, entering restaurants with shoes in hand, or roaming RCA corridors half-naked with Patty Pravo. From the song's text, we can confirm what Baldazzi recounted: "Lucio, how are you? Now you will pay for your lies." The finale confirms his moment of great confusion: "Lucio, how are you? Not even you can say it anymore, but you live, you live, you live."

It's peculiar that some of his most autobiographical piece (or, as said, at least partly autobiographical), which are very few, were written by others, although it seems that at least a part of the text of "Lucio dove vai?" (perhaps his most autobiographical and sincere piece ever) was written by him. In truth, very little is known about his private life, and he never spoke extensively about it himself. Perhaps this difficulty in opening up to others led someone else, who evidently knew him very well, to write about these topics concerning his private life for him, perhaps because he wasn't capable, or simply didn't want to, having a kind of reluctance regarding it; but if he consented to the publication of such pieces, it means he wasn't opposed to spreading something concerning, at least in part, his personal sphere. My rating for the album is four stars because I consider the trilogy with Roversi and the albums from "Com'è profondo il mare" to "Dalla" superior, all deserving of five stars.