Roberto Vecchioni
Sogna, ragazzo, sogna

"And dreams, dreams... dreams come from the sea, for all those who have always chosen to make mistakes"

More than twenty years later, the step is short: "...let them say that those like you in the world will always lose..."

What kind of album is this? How much of it is music and how much is poetry, or why not, philosophy?

According to a hasty reconstruction, it would seem that the dream is the key to understanding all the songs, and that this album is one of the few instances where Vecchioni almost constructs a 'concept album'. The typical Vecchioni trademarks are not missing: personal situations ('Vedrai'), 'mythical' profiles ('Canzone per Alda Merini') and the inevitable ambiguity of duality, which here is somewhat taken for granted: life itself is dual, real and dream.

Without dwelling too much on the tracks, which are well-known, I want to highlight that this time there are no fillers, or minor tracks (at least not clearly), the album is very well constructed, lending itself to being listened to, studied, and loved. Having pointed out the absence of minor tracks, instead notify the presence of hidden gems, for me this album presents at least four fundamental tracks for the Professor that I will not list here, as I believe everyone has a personal relationship with a song. The album is stunning, it just asks to be understood: it wasn't the first time I listened to it, indeed, I might have already known it by heart, when, one evening, I started to read better between its lines, and to find great situations behind phrases, words, that previously seemed placed there just to get by with the rhyme; I remember when there were still 4 or 5 tracks left to complete the listening, I stopped, took a piece of paper and jotted down some thoughts. I felt full, enthusiastic about how all these words seemed beautiful and ran in so many different directions, often obscure, but sometimes let me listen to snippets of my own personal, intimate story. In short, these are not things you expect from every album you listen to.

And so the discourse goes on, life and dream, facing each other. Reality and illusions: how true is what exists? and how much does not exist but is still perceived? I dreamed of living, and Life "...didn't seem to pass, didn't seem an illusion, but look at the jokes, the tricks suggestion can play on you!"

And the same with love, even he does not escape the process, the Professor wants to see more clearly, and he who has always sung about an ideal, sensorial, abstract, and hyperbolic love finds himself putting his feet on the ground, "...I will fight for you with an army of plumbers, tenants, dentists, nuisances, and shopkeepers..." but especially "...I will cover myself with the wounds of boredom, those that no one sees, and never bleed...". Why put your feet on the ground, even in love? "Because flying alone is just an illusion," then "it's harder to move existence, a little below heaven, and become a man."

I conclude with the last track, which is part of that "saga" on which the Professor will write a couple of splendid songs, namely the God-Man relationship. According to God's opinion, Human Life doesn't have that much meaning: "What do they do in the world?! Nothing. They love." And here we can say that Vecchioni puts his signature on a verse that otherwise might have seemed cynical and nihilistic: they love, that's all.

But the problem is serious because the God-Man relationship isn't simple, the differences are many: we live, He "is"; we are many, He is one; we seek Him and try to resemble Him, He hides and is indifferent.

"But your head does not come out of the clouds..." In the end, the problem is all here, we cannot know Him, and He remains a part of the unknown that we can love or fear, or even consider incompatible with our earthly existence and its meaning. Vecchioni has no answers, but his incurable optimism closes the album, manifesting itself even in the face of man's greatest fear.
"...if at the end of the journey none of your stars will have any memory, because the kisses, the hugs, the goodbyes, are our story!"

In short, there is a brash human pride, of what is earthly and what is not. The album is written and sung by a man, for a human listener, not God. And Vecchioni talks about man, fear, and fundamentally the way to contain and counteract it, to feel great despite how tiny we are. So, realizing love, growing, chasing a dream, talking to a God who doesn't even listen to you, these are things that perhaps lead to nothing, "meaningless, of no importance at all," yet that is what we have. The dream of living is our wealth, for some, our curse, for others.