Tutto Fabrizio De André: La città vecchia - The Old City

Nei quartieri dove il sole del buon Dio non dà i suoi raggi ha già troppi impegni per scaldar la gente d'altri paraggi, una bimba canta la canzone antica della donnaccia quel che ancor non sai tu lo imparerai solo qui tra le mie braccia. E se alla sua età le difetterà la competenza presto affinerà le capacità con l'esperienza dove sono andati i tempi di una volta per Giunone quando ci voleva per fare il mestiere anche un po' di vocazione. Una gamba qua, una gamba là, gonfi di vino quattro pensionati mezzo avvelenati al tavolino li troverai là, col tempo che fa, estate e inverno a stratracannare a stramaledire le donne, il tempo ed il governo. Loro cercan là, la felicità dentro a un bicchiere per dimenticare d'esser stati presi per il sedere ci sarà allegria anche in agonia col vino forte porteran sul viso l'ombra d'un sorriso tra le braccia della morte. Vecchio professore cosa vai cercando in quel portone forse quella che sola ti può dare una lezione quella che di giorno chiami con disprezzo pubblica moglie. Quella che di notte stabilisce il prezzo alle tue voglie. Tu la cercherai, tu la invocherai più d'una notte ti alzerai disfatto rimandando tutto al ventisette quando incasserai delapiderai mezza pensione diecimila lire per sentirti dire "micio bello e bamboccione". Se ti inoltrerai lungo le calate dei vecchi moli in quell'aria spessa carica di sale, gonfia di odori lì ci troverai i ladri gli assassini e il tipo strano quello che ha venduto per tremila lire sua madre a un nano. Se tu penserai, se giudicherai da buon borghese li condannerai a cinquemila anni più le spese ma se capirai, se li cercherai fino in fondo se non sono gigli son pur sempre figli vittime di questo mondo. La città vecchia © 1965 Fabrizio De André "La città vecchia" is set in old Genoa where De André spent much time, with its little back alleyways, bars, prostitutes, and the hard lives of the poor people and criminals who lived there on the margins of society, the opposite of what De André experienced with his own upper-middle class upbringing. The song was inspired by a poem of the same name by Umberto Saba set in the port zone of Trieste. And the first two lines are quite similar to lines from a poem by Jacques Prévert, "Embrasse moi": "The sun of the good Lord doesn't shine on our parts/It already has too much to do in the rich quarters." Throughout his songwriting career, De André regularly took inspiration from and borrowed from other works of literature and music. (Translation notes: 1. "Giunone" is "Juno," but "By Jove!" is the common English expression. 2. In Italy, pensioners receive their checks on the 27th of every month.)

In the districts where the sun of the good Lord gives not its rays, it already has too many commitments warming the people of other neighborhoods. A little girl sings the ancient song of the whore: that which you still don’t know, you will learn only here in my arms. And if at her age she might lack in competence, she’ll quickly refine her skills with experience. Where did the good old days go, by Jove, when to practice the craft still required a bit of a calling? A leg here, a leg there, bloated with wine, four pensioners half-poisoned at the table; you’ll find them there, rain or shine, summer and winter, guzzling it down and profusely bad-mouthing women, the weather and the government. They’re searching for bliss there inside a wineglass, to forget having been taken for a fool. There will be joy even in agony with strong wine. They’ll wear on their faces the shadow of a smile in the arms of death. Old professor, what do you go seeking in that street door? Perhaps she who alone can teach you a lesson, she who by day you scornfully call public wife, she who by night sets the price for your desires. You’ll search for her, you’ll invoke her on more than one night. You’ll wake up exhausted, postponing everything til the 27th when you will cash and trash half your pension, 10,000 lira to hear yourself say “sweet pussycat" and "big rag doll.” If you enter along the walkways of the old piers, in that thick air, laden with salt, swollen with odors, there you will find the thieves, the assassins and the weird guy, that one who sold his mother to a dwarf for 3000 lira. If you will think, if you will judge as a fine upstanding middle class person, you'll condemn them to 50,000 years plus expenses; but if you will understand, if you will search them through and through, even if they are not lilies they are always children, victims of this world. English translation © 2014 Dennis Criteser Tutto Fabrizio De André was released in 1966 and is a compilation of singles released between 1961 and 1966.

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