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Important premise, since many will default to one for the usual story of "Eh, but it has already been reviewed." This IS NOT A REVIEW. IT IS SIMPLY AN OUTBURST, a free expression of my bond with "Pawn Hearts," dedicated to the most important album of my life, nothing else.
“Who am I?” “Why do I exist?” “What is the meaning of life for us humans?” “Are we destined to die alone and abandoned?” “Are we what we believe we are?” “Or are we the shadow of ourselves?”
For years, my life was based on these questions, which still seem destined to remain unresolved. We are always looking for certainties in what we live, in the people we love more than anything else, whether they are our best friends, family or, why not, the woman or man of our life. We always seek answers where there will never be any. We are greedy from this point of view. We always try to enrich our search for meaning, but what we will have are not truths. We are greedy for certainties. The truth is that solutions will never seriously be given to humans; humans do not need certainties.
My life, for four "good" years (so to speak), was trapped inside an alibi that prevented the world from manifesting the "true" Gabriele Gilli for what he was. The true Gabriele Gilli was restless, until one day he stumbled upon the work he loves the most, "Pawn Hearts." "Pawn Hearts," just like the other things he loves, did not give him certainties. In love, nothing is certain, nothing is taken for granted, nothing is "true." It is a feeling that escapes logic.
"Pawn Hearts" is not a simple album. Not at all. "Pawn Hearts," from the moment it begins, is a journey within my psyche, in search of answers that never seem to arrive in other contexts, in desperate moments when I cannot understand who I am, as if it were necessary to "understand." Because that is what I am. Often I convince myself that the love for the most important people in my life can give me answers and certainties for the future, but every time the future is unknown, and I despair, sucking my thumb like a baby who moves away for a few minutes from his mother.
Man does not need to understand or know his condition, and "Pawn Hearts" demonstrates this excellently.
"Pawn Hearts" starts off with a bang: timidly, but with "emotional" power that has no equal. My journey has just begun, and a graceful yet dramatic guitar bursts forth (which halfway through will be played by his majesty Robert Fripp, an honor guest of an exceedingly high level, I won't explain why, you should know already). The brass instruments played by David Jackson burst in immediately, while Peter Hammill's voice articulates sweet words, but that foretell man's fear. It's just the beginning, Hammill exactly describes my fear: the lemmings are all jumping into the sea, abandoning me, and everything seems so surreal.
The surreal context I find myself in is excellently described by that frenzied duel between Banton's organ and Jackson's saxophone, accompanied by Evans' perpetual tribal marching drums. Peter Hammill interprets the two voices of the two characters involved in the plot: the desperate man, who sees suicide as the only way out, and the prophet, who comes, with an almost harsh but determined tone, to the poor man who now sees everything disappearing beneath his feet.
We have always sought heroes, but heroes do not exist for humans, not even the gods can give us the answers we seek. There are no answers. We must go on. The words of the prophet resonate powerfully in my soul, while the guitar timidly re-emerges, only to be "demolished" once more by the chaos commanded by Peter Hammill's angry voice, which suddenly emerges with strangled, heart-wrenching screams and choked by an existential void that seems never to abandon the common man. A cosmic and irregular atmosphere suddenly begins, interspersed with moments of illusory calm and moments of absurd madness. There are no solutions to get out of this. There is a way: human collectivization, uniting among men, blood in the blood, to face the existential drama of our life, perfectly described by Banton's cadenced and mad piano. "What choice is there left but to live? To save the little ones?" What can we do to "save" our loved ones who seem to be all drowning in the sea of darkness and nothingness? Nothing. "Lemmings" gives no answer. We must move on, together, there are no certainties to cling to, and we must live with our condition and find the strength within ourselves. "Lemmings" concludes with soothing winds, which abruptly interrupt at the end, as if to signal that man's problems do not end just with the sense of perpetual abandonment that characterizes him. It's just the beginning.
With determination, sweetness, drama, and pain, "Man-Erg" begins, the song that marks the beginning of man's dualism. A dualism that has distinguished him since the dawn of time. "Are we killers or angels?" Peter Hammill asks himself, while in desperation seeking answers, as the angel and the killer, with different attitudes, struggle within him to come out.
The song abruptly interrupts the melancholy. The psychological decay of man begins, marked by electric and swift breaths of David Jackson, supported upright by Banton's keyboards. In the air, a desperate scream can be sensed (almost a Munch-like scream from the second half of the twentieth century) of Peter Hammill emerging in the air. "How can I be free? How can I get help? Am I really me? Am I someone else?" Man's dualism is destroying man's certainties, depriving him of freedom, depriving him of his identity. He is no longer himself. At least that's what he believes he is no longer. That is, a man.
The pace slows down, only to explode definitively at the arrival of that mournful piano, which in a moment of irrational calm tries to accompany the man (or rather, the individual who believes he is deprived and a slave to his dualism). Peter Hammill's saxophone seems to almost give serenity to my soul, while I reflect on myself. Am I Gabriele Gilli? Or the shadow of myself? Am I a good and naive boy? Or am I a rude and cynical boy devoid of common sense? And while I'm trying to resolve this doubt, Jackson's saxophone describes my memories, very powerful memories, that can give me awareness of my self that seems almost lost in this huge dualism. The violent romanticism of Jackson's saxophone duets with Banton's dramatic yet hopeful piano line.
I have not found answers. "Man-Erg" gives no solutions, no certainties. However, it gives man awareness. It teaches man to live with the dualism that will never abandon him. Man, living with such dualism, reaches the awareness of being a man and manages to be a man at moments in which he cannot. Because by loving oneself for what one is, one has the possibility, sometimes, to find that apparent serenity that we yearn for and need so much. "Pawn Hearts" gives no answers. We must learn to live with what we have and with what we are and understand that in most cases we cannot obtain what we desire, but obtain what we need. And what we need is awareness of ourselves, which is given to us by "Man-Erg," almost a life teacher. An unusual teacher, though, as it doesn't teach us anything nice as its "name" would suggest. A very powerful single chorus of Hammill concludes the song, while yet another surge of the piano and the saxophone describe scenarios that smell of hope like never before, despite dramatic notes that partially diminish the enthusiasm, only to end abruptly.
My journey within myself is not yet over, though. The third part of my journey is yet to begin, the most beautiful part. The universal worthy conclusion of my adventure within myself. With painful yet determined piano notes, "A Plague Of Lighthouse Keepers" begins, the song of my life, in which my entire existential journey is described, from beginning to end, from my deepest fears of existential void to my sweetness never concealed in recent months.
"Still waiting for my saviour, Storms tear me limb from limb. My fingers feel like seaweed. I'm so far out, I'm too far in. I am a lonely man
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