Francesco Guccini: Fra la via Emilia e il West

This is the third live album by Francesco Guccini, one of the most famous Italian cantautori (singer/songwriters). Recorded during the 1984 summer tour, it serves as a good summary of the artist's career. The double-album features some of Guccini's most renown songs, which gained him the connotation of a very "political" songwriter: "Il vecchio e il bambino", "Eskimo", "La locomotiva" reflect a leftist view, strongly linked to the Sessantotto (68) era.
But "Fra la via Emilia e il West" also collects many pensive, melancholic songs, which actually represent the vast majority of Guccini's production. A very personal reworking of decadent poets Giovanni Pascoli and Guido Gozzano and the Joycean concept of epiphany consitute the core of Guccini's poetics. "Incontro", narrating a chance encounter with an old friend which becomes a nostalgic meditation on the passing of time, ends with these verses:

E pensavo dondolato dal vagone:
Cara amica, il tempo prende, il tempo da;
Noi corriamo sempre in una direzione
Ma qual sia e che senso abbia chi lo sa.
Restano i sogni senza tempo, le impressioni di un momento
Le luci nel buio di case intraviste da un treno.
Siamo qualcosa che non resta, frasi vuote nella testa
E il cuore di simboli pieno.

And I thought, swung by train:
My dear friend, time takes, time gives;
We always run in some direction
But who knows which it is or what its sense is.
It's the timeless dreams which remain, the impressions of a moment,
The lights in the dark of the houses, glimpsed from a train.
We're something which doesn't last, empty phrases in our head
And our heart, full of symbols.

"La canzone della bambina portoghese" describes the unspeakable extasis of a child standing before the ocean:

Gli amici vicino sembravan sommersi dalla voce del mare
O sogni o visioni qualcosa la prese e si mise a pensare
Sentì che era un punto al limite di un continente
Sentì che era un niente, l'Atlantico immenso di fronte.
E in questo sentiva qualcosa di grande
Che non riusciva a capire,
Che non poteva intuire,
Che avrebbe spiegato
Se avesse saputo, lei,
Che l'Oceano è infinito.
Ma il caldo l'avvolse e si sentì svanire, e si mise a dormire.
E fu solo nel sole, come di mani future.
Restaron soltanto il mare e un bikini amaranto.

The friends near her, they seemed to be submerged by the voice of the sea
Dreams, or visions, something took her and she began thinking
She felt she was point, on the edge of the continent
She felt she was a nothing, the immense Atlantic before her.
In this she felt something grand
Something she couldn't understand
Something she couldn't grasp,
She would have explained it,
If only she knew
That the ocean's infinite.
But the heat shrouded her and she felt herself disappearing, and she began sleeping.
There lasted only these: the sea, and a purple bikini.

From a strictly musical point of view, Guccini's songs are usually long, mainly acoustic, often refrainless folk-rock ballads. The model's rather american, with frequent excursions in disguised blues harmonies. Former Il Volo keyboardist Vince Tempera, Area's bassist Ares Tavolazzi and argentinian guitarist Juan Carlos "Flaco" Biondini provide a top-notch accompainment, spoiled only by some kitsch synthetizer timbre here and there.

If you are Italian, you can read a more detailed analysis of Guccini's poetics I wrote some months ago for the site ondarock.it.

Tracklist:
CD 1:

1. Canzone per un'amica
2. Autogrill
   
3. Il vecchio e il bambino
4. Il pensionato
5. L'isola non trovata
6. Asia
   
7. Canzone della bambina portoghese
8. Canzone delle osterie di fuori porta
   
9. Il frate

CD 2:

1. Piccola città
2. Venezia
   
3. Bologna
4. Eskimo
5. Incontro
6. Vedi cara
7. Un altro giorno è andato
8. Canzone quasi d'amore
9. La locomotiva

Download (192 kbps)
CD 1 | CD 2