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Rating: I encountered "Paris Milonga" one October evening six or seven years ago.
Outside, it was raining and dreary, people were running without umbrellas towards houses or cinemas, in a setting worthy of the opening scenes of "I Vitelloni"... I ended up in a shopping center doing groceries near closing time. I found it lying at 12,000 lire at the bottom of old CD baskets, near the deli section.
Half-broken cover, I picked it up. I spent one of the most moving nights of my life. I had perhaps chosen it for that fantastic new wave/papettiana cover, for the presence of the flagship song "Via Con Me", the only song I knew of Paolo Conte the performer. I was completely unfamiliar with the lawyer from Asti; I didn't know I was facing the second act of the so-called "Mocambo trilogy" (after "Gelato al limon" and before "Appunti di viaggio"). I was intrigued by that year of release, 1981. What could the national scene offer me in that unusual year?
One of the sunniest certainties of the decade. A young old man of 37 who lives outside of time, for whom it is also unfair to talk about dating. His music has no temporal coordinates. Before all the Capossela, all the Cammariere, Conte forged his own style, new yet based on the classic, on tradition: in his case, the jazz-swing mythology of the first three decades of the twentieth century.
It began with the eponymous "Paolo Conte" (1975), the search for an atmosphere that wants to pay homage to the past without being nostalgic, that wants to tell the feelings of any chansonnier, celebrating a black and white Europe that smells of old drugstores and menthol cigarettes, of wild boogies and rainy loves across the border.
As always, the journey is strictly by train ("Azzurro", "Il Treno Va", etc.), if not in vintage cars like a maroon Topolino.
This time it starts with "Alle prese con una verde milonga", a majestic piece that makes the milonga a dream, the (slowed-down) accompaniment to the most evocative trips of a musician ecstatic about his own art.
We will then be taken between American ravings ("Blue Hawaii") - because the world across the ocean is not seen but dreamed of - between surreal prophecies about the female gender ("L’ultima donna") and love stories, of glances, of silences ("Un’altra donna").
"Via con me" needs no comments from me; it is a summary of many Contian thoughts, made of love and hate for roots, of abandoned and pursued affections; it is the "Born To Run" in Italian.
We arrive at the last stop, that "Pretend Pretend" which could be the accompaniment to the end credits of a late Italian comedy, with its melancholy veiled by a chorus of female voices halfway between Lili Marlene and Liza Minnelli from "Cabaret".
Just ten tracks will play, and you'll want more. I tried the other albums, the quality level is always incredibly high. The style is always homogeneous, don't imagine big shocks, Paolo Conte is not Beck. But he has such class and genius that he seems (like all our other classic songwriters, from Guccini to Bertoli) static in terms of musical innovations; in reality, he has composed immortal music, aimed at excellence, that knows how to evolve, but in a quiet and slow way, almost artisanal. Critics have definitively crowned "900" (1992) as his masterpiece. In my opinion, although this latter is a great album, it is only the culmination of a process (lasting more than ten years) of reworking this first era, the Wilsonian pursuit of the "perfect work," which nevertheless, as attempts go by, loses a bit of spontaneity and risks being misunderstood as a genre exercise. Personally, I appreciate more the latest "Elegia", released after years of silence and a confessed drop in inspiration. A bare and flawed work, but brand new, beautiful for a sixty-year-old.
But "Paris Milonga" remains my love, a treasure chest of reflected bitterness and poetry to listen to in the rain, the fingers of a man on ivory to express the warmth of an evening, a thoughtful yet never sad voice that knows how to open our hearts as soon as we go to meet it, perhaps in a café out of the center.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
05 Via con me (02:46)
Via via �
Vieni via con me.
Niente pi� ti lega a questi luoghi
Neanche questi fiori azzuri.
Via via �
Neanche questo tempo grigio,
pieno di musiche
e di uomini che ti son piaciuti.
It's wonderful
It's wonderful
It's wonderful
Good luck my baby
It's wonderful
It's wonderful
It's wonderful
I dream of you
Chips chips chips
Du du du du du
Ci bum ci bum bum
Du du du du du
Ci bum ci bum bum
Du du du du du
Via via �
Vieni via con me.
Entra in questo amore buio
Non perderti per niente al mondo
Via via �
Non perderti per niente al mondo
Lo spettacolo d�arte varia
Di uno innamorato di te.
It's wonderful
It's wonderful
It's wonderful
Good luck my baby
It's wonderful
It's wonderful
It's wonderful
I dream of you
Chips chips chips
Du du du du du
Ci bum ci bum bum
Du du du du du
Ci bum ci bum bum
Du du du du du
Via via �
Vieni via con me.
Entra in questo amore buio
Pieno di uomini.
Via via �
Entra e fatti un bagno caldo
C�� un accappatoio azzurro
Fuori piove, � un mondo freddo.
It's wonderful
It's wonderful
It's wonderful
Good luck my baby
It's wonderful
It's wonderful
It's wonderful
I dream of you
Chips chips chips
Du du du du du
Ci bum ci bum bum
Du du du du du
Ci bum ci bum bum
Du du du du du
06 Madeleine (03:56)
Qui, tutto il meglio è già qui,
non ci sono parole per spiegare ed intuire
e capire, Madeleine, e se mai ricordare...
tanto, io capisco soltanto
il tatto delle tue mani e la canzone perduta
e ritrovata
come un`altra, un`altra vita...
Allons, Madeleine,
certi gatti o certi uomini,
svanti in una nebbia o in una tappezzeria,
addio addio, mai più ritorneranno, si sa,
col tempo e il vento tutto vola via,
tais-toi, tais-toi, tais-toi...
Ma qualche volta è così
che qualcuno è tornato sotto certe carezze...
...e poi la strada inghiotte subito gli amanti,
per piazze e ponti ciascuno se ne va,
e se vuoi, laggiù li vedi ancora danzanti
che più che gente sembrano foulards...
Ma tutto il meglio è già qui, non ci sono parole...
08 Boogie (05:15)
Due note e il ritornello era già nella pelle di quei due
il corpo di lei madava vampate africane, lui sembrava un coccodrillo…
i saxes spingevano a fondo come ciclisti gregari in fuga
e la canzone andava avanti sempre più affondata nell’aria…
quei due continuavano, da lei saliva afrore di coloniali
che giungevano a lui come da una di quelle drogherie di una volta
che tenevano la porta aperta davanti alla primavera…
qualcuno nei paraggi cominciava a starnutire,
il vantilatore ronzava immenso dal soffitto esausto,
i saxes, ipnotizzati… dai movimenti di lei si spandevano
rumori di gomma e di vernice, da lui di cuoio…
le luci saettavano sul volto pechinese della cassiera
che fumava al mentolo, altri sternutivano senza malizia
e la canzone andava elegante, l’orchestra era partita, decollava…
i musicisti, un tutt’uno col soffitto e il pavimento,
solo il batterista nell’ombra guardava con sguardi cattivi…
quei due danzavano bravi, una nuova cassiera sostituiva la prima,
questa qui aveva gli occhi da lupa e masticava caramelle alascane,
quella musica continuava, era una canzone che diceva e non diceva,
l’orchestra si dondolava come un palmizio davanti a un mare venerato…
quei due sapevano a memoria dove volevano arrivare…
un quinto personaggio esitò
prima di sternutire,
poi si rifugiò nel nulla…
era un mondo adulto,
si sbagliava da professionisti...
09 Parigi (03:11)
Lo so, lo so che questo non � cipria, � sorriso?
e s�, che non � luce, � solo un attimo di gloria
e riguarda me, che sono qui davanti a te sotto la pioggia
mentre tutto intorno � solamente pioggia e Francia?
Chiss� cosa possiamo dirci in fondo a questa luce?
quali parole, luce di pioggia e luce di conquista?
hum? lasciamo fare a questo albergo ormai cos� vicino,
cos� accogliente, dove va a morir d'amore la gente?
Io e te, chiss� qualcuno ci avr� pure presentato?
e abbiamo usato un taxi pi� un telefono pi� una piazza?
Io e te, scaraventati dall'amore in una stanza,
mentre tutto intorno � pioggia, piggia, pioggia e Francia?
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Other reviews
By Viva Lì
"Via con me" is the emblem of a career, perhaps of a lifetime: a woman (a Goddess?) falls in love with a man (a mortal?) and with him makes an inexorable, destructive, perhaps redeemed journey towards hope and magnificence.
"Alle prese con la verde milonga" is a vertiginous track... Paolo Conte grafts, into the harmonious sounds of a 19th-century milonga, the rhythms and sounds of a modern jazz ballad.
By luludia
Jazz and all those outdated music hunting for echoes and madeleines.
Master Paolo is a true expert in spices and perfumes.
