Rhubarb Rhubarb
Rainmaker/Moneylender

And then you find yourself lost in a labyrinthine page on the web...

It's a page in English and you understand it just right, and you ended up there looking for news about a psychedelic little song that has sparked your imagination.

And yes, the feeling is that of a labyrinth, with a whole series of fabulous references to writers you've never heard of, old folk songs, street musicians, tricksters, swindlers, and a million other things.

It talks about fatalism, about little men anchored to a mask and a role, about the fact that there is no choice and that we all scramble to get by.

"Moneylender" tells the story of one of these little men, a usurer, and it tells it, all things considered, in a benign way.

That he too is just a man anchored to a mask and a role... and he too scrambles to get by.

Anyway, the description of the song doesn't take up more than a few lines...

Because the beauty is all those unknown references that, clinging to a language I understand a third of, become mysterious entities darting in an aquarium that spawns fantasy.

And I find it wonderful that a little song, a breath of immediacy that becomes transcendence, immerses itself, thanks to the few lines with which an inspired critic describes it, in the vast sea of the most esoteric digressions.

It all gives a sense of vertigo. And it's not strange since we're talking about psychedelia.

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These are truly esoteric, the Rhubarb Rhubarb, I mean.

The Rhubarb Rhubarb, that is, the Rabarbaro Rabarbaro.

And I smile... because the only thing that comes to mind when thinking of rhubarb are the brownish and slightly bitter candies that my father always carried in his pocket.

But "Moneylender" and "Rainmaker," side A and side B of their only forty-five, are not bitter at all. Nor brownish in any way.

"Moneylender" and "Rainmaker" are two colorful little psychopop candies.

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There are few certainties in life. I, for instance, have just a couple, and they are, respectively, cold beer and hot pizza and hot pizza and cold beer.

I know, it's not much, but it's definitely better than nothing.

With musical certainties, though, it's a bit easier, because, as the good Ferdinando used to say, "man only understands money and theater." Meaning, I imagine, with the term theater, art in general,

Anyway, years and years of listening have led me to an almost conviction, and that almost conviction goes something like this: "British pop songs between '66 and '68 are the most vivid and fresh ever."

The same concept the "apple seed" used to express with a formula that seems pretty happy to me, that is, "assault on the sky in the form of a little song" or "a little sky song in the form of an assault." Because those songs, by virtue of a mysterious light gas, remained suspended in the air for a long time defying gravity.

And precisely gravity, the weight (that is to say depression and melancholy) were the other side of that apparent festival of spirit and senses that went down in history as English psychedelia.

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And anyway, the Rhubarb Rhubarb are truly unknown.

Like, they're not even mentioned in "All'ombra di Sergent Pepper," the psychedelic bible by Federico Ferrari!!!

And to say that at the end of that marvelous book there is a sensational, dazzling, sparkling list of minor sixties bands, something to absolutely lose one's head over!!!

But about the Rhubarb Rhubarb, nothing...

Online, besides that esoteric page I've told you about, you'll only find people wanting to sell you the record for 200 dollars.

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And so, without knowing nada de nada, let's take a few steps among the clouds.

(ONE)

The cover image makes you think of an old biscuit tin, the kind you find in the basement and then store letters or memories in.

But what does a biscuit (or tea or candy) tin have to do with those times of feverish magic?

Whether it's a fantastic combination or a happy incongruity, in English psychopop there's almost always a twilight aftertaste, an air of dusty (yet invigorating) childhood.

Think of "Matilda Mother" by Floyd, where the vision is consumed in the darkness of the dollhouse amid magic, unease, and old scents.

But, coming back to our cover, what could be more English than tins and biscuits?

It's that in the new verb, and I believe this is the profound sense of the labyrinthine page mentioned at the start, a fragrance persists... and it's the fragrance of old England.

(TWO)

The titles of the anthologies in which our esoteric forty-five has been inserted over the years are rather fabulous and also rather explanatory.

"The electric lemonade acid test," "Circus days," and "Sometimes I wonder."

And, beyond a "sometimes I would like with an electric lemonade to float in the circus of my thoughts," which is just my little game, they really refer back to the spirit of the times.

(THREE)

"Moneylender" and "Rainmaker" can be found on the tube along with those (now classic) kaleidoscopic and ultra-colored images.

It's a little trick that works beautifully and refers, once again, to vertigo and thus to the first principle of psychedelia.

This principle states: "better, much better the vertigo."

One day, as with thermodynamics, we'll find the second and third too.

Indeed, if you like, find them yourselves.

(Four)

Rhubarb in English slang also means nonsense, foolishness, stupidity. No wonder that, in a sort of up and down with melancholy, the English have always been jokers.

Well, now that our four steps are over, put the clouds in a blender. Maybe that's exactly the instrument the song "Rainmaker" talks about.

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"Moneylender" and "Rainmaker" are pop masterpieces for acid voice and refracting/bouncing sound... and they possess, to the maximum extent (but maximum, eh), the sharp sweetness of the happiest extravagance... then, of course, the space-time phase typical of the times... vertigo again and again... and again...

I know, the same could be said for hundreds of songs from the period. Because after all, the Rhubarb Rhubarb, despite their esoteric name, were following the little guidebook of the times,

"Moneylender" and "Rainmaker" are nonetheless of such unprecedented freshness that, even if dust settled on them, that dust would instantly become gold dust.

Aloha...