Rino Gaetano
Ingresso libero

A.D. 1974 A.C. From the early experiences at Folkstudio to the first real album in a recording studio. Thanks to Vincenzo Micocci, the young artist Rino Gaetano can finally summarize his ideas in a record, just like his childhood idols, the likes of De Andrè, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, and others. And here is "Ingresso Libero," just 2 years after the recording debut of De Gregori and Venditti with "Theorius Campus," who, a year later, both achieved their first success with "Alice" and "Mio padre ha un buco in gola." At this point, one can only wonder: "How is it possible that this first work went unnoticed, and no one, neither the public nor the critics, noticed this great songwriter?"

New language, new themes, new style, committed and carefree at the same time, autobiographical and imagined, ironic and confidential. In "Ingresso Libero," though in an embryonic state, all the ingredients of the poetics of the Crotonese adopted by Rome are present. The love for his land in "Ad esempio a me piace il Sud," a nostalgic ballad that exalts the values of the "peasant" typical of the Southern villages, and describes sensations that "if ever someone understands / will undoubtedly be another like me!", because between explaining and understanding a feeling lies the experience of those who live it. Then "A.D. 4000 A.C." takes us to an absurd and whimsical future that, among "chloroformized monkeys," "sky custard blood and honey" and a "Venusian immigrant," leaves ample space for references to the present, such as a "Guttuso painting" and "the failure of Sapporo," because "it's a wheel that turns, turns, and goes away", in a sort of historical cycles and recurrences of Giambattista Vico.

The smoky  "A Khatmandu", an enigmatic nursery rhyme with an ironic refrain in pure rhyme ending with an accented "u," insists on an already playful rhythmic scheme ("A Khatmandù/ c'è anche il gurù/ ci porta in paranoia predicando a testa in giù"). In "Supponiamo un amore," the love song takes a totally different turn from the usual light song of Battisti. Love is now constructed (or perhaps revisited) according to suppositions, that is, a rational and no longer emotional construction. Love, however, cannot be supposed, and therefore the reality of the feeling is completely different from its construction, and "what matters is us"!

I won't elaborate on the enigmatic and sarcastic fairy tale "E la vecchia salta con l'asta," the realistic and social  "Agapito Malteni il ferroviere," the ballad dedicated to the morning sea that cannot be forgotten "I tuoi occhi sono pieni di sale" and on the last song, "L'operaio della Fiat (la 1100)," I would dare say a fantozzian strummed riff on the condition of the working class.

I have deliberately left for last the open-track, "Tu, forse non essenzialmente tu," a splendid romantic song, filled with autobiographical traits like "I go to the Baron but don't play draughts", where the chorus closes with the splendid verses "you, perhaps not essentially you/ and the night confidentially blue/ searching for the soul!". The continuous search for a purpose, for love, for life itself, for an ultimate meaning, reminds me of the continuous search for the "notion of time" perpetuated along the roads of the States by the beat generation, as well as Bob Dylan's pursuit of "Mr. Tambourine Man" in the morning confusion. And he, Rino Gaetano, illegitimate son of the Italian song, feels the exact same need, and he sings it, he writes it, and he will write it in all his subsequent albums, in songs like "Mio fratello è figlio unico", "Escluso il cane", "Cerco", "Io scriverò", "Ti ti ti ti". Who is not in search of themselves? Who does not feel alone at least once in their life? Who does not wish to have the woman they love by their side? All this is "Tu, forse non essenzialmente tu", also seasoned with sarcasm and mockery, because the path to serenity is a smile. Thank you Rino!