4. Not for Money, Not for Love, Nor for Heaven
De André has been periodically releasing an album a year for the past 5 years, steadily growing in a dizzying manner. Not for Money certainly represents another gesture of his cultivated maturity. It revisits Spoon River and adapts some characters to a modern context, like a perfectly preserved mummy. And what characters: the madman who, to astonish his fellow citizens, memorizes a dictionary only to be committed, a short man who rises to the high office of judge, the blasphemer who is beaten to death for his ideas, the doctor who, in doing good, ends up conning everyone, the chemist who recognizes only the alchemy between elements and not between people, the heart patient who lives in dull emotions until his first kiss, so intense that it kills him, the optician who tries new lenses to show ordinary people different layers of reality. And in the end, there's him, the musician Jones, who forsakes his lands to play the flute (in Spoon River, he plays the violin) until the day of his departure; music is his calling throughout his life, preserving many memories within himself but leaving no room for a single regret. It’s so beautiful to see how all these characters speak of their own death as if it were simply falling to the ground, perhaps with a scrape, but as if it were nothing. As if their lives don’t really matter in the end, given that sooner or later they will all find themselves there, on the hill, with different destinies, different souls united by a single destination. It’s impossible to capture all the possible meanings this album holds in just one listen, and even today it’s still impressive to see how Not for Money raises many questions about one’s existence and its emptiness, about the fact that it must end sooner or later, and how it may appear like many others but is, in itself, unique.
Meticulous rating: 10 with honors (allowing myself to be swept away by emotions)
The gem among gems: Il suonatore Jones