Ladies and gentlemen, buzzurri and not, as usual, I am happy to present to you 40 YEARS OF LA VOCE DEL PADRONE, where we will analyze in detail the 7 tracks that make up Franco Battiato's masterpiece. Let’s get started.
Track 1: Summer On A Solitary Beach (2008 Remaster)
The album opens with a distant sound of waves, upon which the base unfolds, with verses that are urgent yet slightly melancholic in melody. "We spent the summer on a lonely beach," these are the first lines of the piece and they are disarming in themselves: a summer spent in solitude, without that summer joy that brings comfort. This makes this beach almost a metaphysical place, unreal, as if by eliminating all the summer elements, the beach loses its common meaning.
"And we could hear the echo of an open-air cinema and on the sand a tropical warmth from the sea," typical elements of a summer vacation, yet always mixed with this veil of solitude and sadness, in such an empty seaside town that only the cinema can break the silence. "And in the afternoon when the sun nourished us, every now and then a cry covered the distances and the air of things became unreal" – even during the afternoon, there is no one around, just an occasional shout; but the lyrics say that the air of things became unreal, which, connecting it to the earlier line, could suggest that on that beach, in that climate of solitude, a kind of magic was created, a moment of peace that lasts for a long time.
Then the chorus kicks in, the base calms down and becomes softer, and Battiato intones the iconic "Sea, sea, I want to drown, take me far away to shipwreck, away away away from these shores, take me far away on the waves"... which, in extreme summary, means he’s fed up, he’s had enough of the sea and he begs his companion (or companion?) to take him away from there. The base then explodes again in this sad dance and the second verse begins: "A wonderful summer on a solitary beach, against the sea le Gran Hotel Sea-gull Magic" – in content, it's somewhat the parallel of the open-air cinema, only with the Grand Hotel... and in English. But strangely, he says A wonderful summer after complaining about being fed up with the sea: I've always viewed this as a veiled attack on the man of consumer society, who constantly changes his mind, who goes to the sea in summer simply because it’s common to everyone and instead finds himself alone.
Then comes the most cryptic and indecipherable part of the entire piece: "While in the distance a dark miner was returning." It’s a line full of mystery and questions; why introduce a dark miner in an anti-climactic way? And where is he returning from? By looking into it a bit more, we might see that Battiato could be referring to the sulfur mines in Sicily, active until the late '70s, where miners worked in inhumane conditions, or he could be referencing a song from the '30s called simply Miniera; in short, there are many interpretations.
Track 1: Summer On A Solitary Beach (2008 Remaster)
The album opens with a distant sound of waves, upon which the base unfolds, with verses that are urgent yet slightly melancholic in melody. "We spent the summer on a lonely beach," these are the first lines of the piece and they are disarming in themselves: a summer spent in solitude, without that summer joy that brings comfort. This makes this beach almost a metaphysical place, unreal, as if by eliminating all the summer elements, the beach loses its common meaning.
"And we could hear the echo of an open-air cinema and on the sand a tropical warmth from the sea," typical elements of a summer vacation, yet always mixed with this veil of solitude and sadness, in such an empty seaside town that only the cinema can break the silence. "And in the afternoon when the sun nourished us, every now and then a cry covered the distances and the air of things became unreal" – even during the afternoon, there is no one around, just an occasional shout; but the lyrics say that the air of things became unreal, which, connecting it to the earlier line, could suggest that on that beach, in that climate of solitude, a kind of magic was created, a moment of peace that lasts for a long time.
Then the chorus kicks in, the base calms down and becomes softer, and Battiato intones the iconic "Sea, sea, I want to drown, take me far away to shipwreck, away away away from these shores, take me far away on the waves"... which, in extreme summary, means he’s fed up, he’s had enough of the sea and he begs his companion (or companion?) to take him away from there. The base then explodes again in this sad dance and the second verse begins: "A wonderful summer on a solitary beach, against the sea le Gran Hotel Sea-gull Magic" – in content, it's somewhat the parallel of the open-air cinema, only with the Grand Hotel... and in English. But strangely, he says A wonderful summer after complaining about being fed up with the sea: I've always viewed this as a veiled attack on the man of consumer society, who constantly changes his mind, who goes to the sea in summer simply because it’s common to everyone and instead finds himself alone.
Then comes the most cryptic and indecipherable part of the entire piece: "While in the distance a dark miner was returning." It’s a line full of mystery and questions; why introduce a dark miner in an anti-climactic way? And where is he returning from? By looking into it a bit more, we might see that Battiato could be referring to the sulfur mines in Sicily, active until the late '70s, where miners worked in inhumane conditions, or he could be referencing a song from the '30s called simply Miniera; in short, there are many interpretations.
Martello
31 mar 21
DeRank ™: 18,50
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