Le nuvole: Le nuvole - Clouds

Vanno vengono ogni tanto si fermano e quando si fermano sono nere come il corvo sembra che ti guardano con malocchio Certe volte sono bianche e corrono e prendono la forma dell'airone o della pecora o di qualche altra bestia ma questo lo vedono meglio i bambini che giocano a corrergli dietro per tanti metri Certe volte ti avvisano con rumore prima di arrivare e la terra si trema e gli animali si stanno zitti certe volte ti avvisano con rumore Vengono vanno ritornano e magari si fermano tanti giorni che non vedi più il sole e le stelle e ti sembra di non conoscere più il posto dove stai Vanno vengono per una vera mille sono finte e si mettono li tra noi e il cielo per lasciarci soltanto una voglia di pioggia. Le nuvole © 1990 Fabrizio De André/Mauro Pagani For the opening song of the album, De André chose to have the lyrics recited by two women, one old and one young, who "represented Mother Earth." But the clouds are not intended to be clouds in the sky. "They are these intrusive and damaging characters of our civic, political and economic life that I'm trying to describe in the first part of the album, along with some of their victims. These clouds are the figures who hold power, with all of their arrogance, as bad examples. I was inspired by Aristophanes. . . . My clouds are all those who are terrified of the new, because the new could subvert their positions of power."

They go, they come, every so often they stop, and when they stop they are black like the crow. It seems they’re giving you the evil eye. Certain times they are white and they run and they take the form of the egret, or of the ram or of some other beast. But this they see better, the children, who play at running after them for so many meters. Certain times they warn you with noise before arriving and the earth trembles and the animals stay still. Certain times they warn you with noise. They come, they go, they return, and maybe they stop for so many days that you no longer see the sun or the stars, and you don’t seem to know any more the place where you are. They go, they come. For every true one a thousand are fake and were put there between us and the sky to leave us with only a longing for rain. English translation © 2014 Dennis Criteser It took six years after the tremendous success of Creuza de mä for De André to release his next studio album, Le nuvole (The Clouds). In the meantime, he and Mauro Pagani explored several avenues of musical collaboration which did not come to fruition. De André had this to say about Le nuvole: "I realized that people are just pissed off, and since Le nuvole is a symbol of this dissatisfaction, the transference, the intermediary for this general discontent, I would say that the album was welcomed almost as a banner, like an emblem of the anger in the face of a nation that is going to the dogs, and certainly not through any fault of the citizens." Additionally, Mauro Pagani said the album was a fantastic description of Italy in the 1980s, with parallels to Europe in the early 1800s: "Italy in the early 1980s was like Europe in 1815: the Congress of Vienna, the fall of the Napoleonic empire, the sharing of the goods among the winning powers, social classes built on wealth instead of aristocracy, a society of fake Christianity . . ." The title of and inspiration for the album came from the comedy of the same name by Aristophanes, whom De André greatly admired.

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