10 phrases to remember Fabrizio De André

January 11th is not just any date for those who love the written and sung word. Today, 27 years ago, he left us Fabrizio De André. To define him as a simple singer-songwriter would be to do a disservice to the complexity of his essence. Faber is an ethnographer of lost souls, a theologian of anarchy and the best lawyer that society’s last and outcasts have ever had.

We want to remember him with his own words, that is, with ten quotes which we can consider as access keys to his philosophical universe.

As much as you believe yourself to be absolved, you are forever involved

From the “Song of May”, taken from “Story of an employee”, the album that De André dedicates to 1968. A warning against indifference, which breaks the barrier between artist and listener: no one can escape the injustices of their time or collective responsibilities, taking refuge behind an alleged “neutrality”. No one is innocent by inaction. To quote Giorgio Gaber, we should feel free and happy only if others are too.

Nothing grows from diamonds, flowers grow from manure

One of Faber’s best-known thoughts, certainly one of the most cited – even inappropriately. Beauty does not arise from perfection, but from marginality, from suffering, from the dirty earth of real life. In this sentence there is the evangelical reversal which runs throughout his work: the last are the first, and what society discards is often the true fulcrum of humanity. Fabrizio’s bourgeois origins, luxury and respectability have always been close to him. “Remember Lord these servants disobedient to the laws of the pack“, he will sing in “Immeasurable Prayer”.

There are no good powers

Fabrizio De André cannot be separated from his anarchist soul and “In my hour of freedom” is one of the songs that represents her best. Authority intrinsically carries with it the seed of oppression. Freedom is not granted: it is exercised. Often against the wishes of those who hold the keys to the cells and courtrooms. Power, as a structure, inevitably tends to defend itself, to justify its own violence and to crush those who have no voice. For this reason the point of view in his songs it always starts from the bottom.

For the same reason as travel, travel

“Khorakhané (By force of being wind)” is one of Fabrizio De André’s poetic peaks, like the entire album from which it is taken, “Anime salve”. It is a universal tribute to all nomadic peoples and their philosophy of life, one existential condition of constant research. The truth does not belong to those who live in the security of routine, but to those who burn with passion and freedom. The Roma people represent the “saved souls” par excellence, those who have renounced private property and borders, symbols of power and war.

What I don’t have is what I don’t lack

A hymn to essentiality and the rejection of consumerism. Faber’s wealth lies in what he chose not to possess because desire is hardly natural, it is often induced: what is presented as indispensable serves above all to maintain the status quo of power. Freedom also comes from unlearn to want.

God of mercy, you created your beautiful Paradise especially for those who did not smile

How heartbreaking is “Prayer in January”. The death of his friend and colleague Luigi Tenco it devastates Fabrizio, who pours all his pain into this song. The God of De André he is not that of dogmas, but a father who welcomes the desperate, the suicidal and the defeated, giving them that place of honor that earthly life has denied.

I thought it was beautiful that where my fingers end a guitar should somehow begin

“Fragile friend” is essential to understand who Fabrizio De André was. Written in a night of isolation after a bad evening, “Fragile Friend” is a stream of consciousness in which De André lays bare his inadequacy and intolerance towards social conventions. The guitar becomes the only possible mediation between himself and the world, the instrument through which his fragility stops being a burden and becomes a voice capable of reaching others.

I dreamed so hard that blood came out of my nose

The “dream” is not a wish: it is the traumatic awakening of an Indian child after the massacre of the natives on November 29, 1864 near Big Sandy Creek, where Colorado soldiers killed women and children. “Sand Creek River” tells of the violent impact with the reality of war that breaks into sleep; the child’s point of view is the image of an innocence shattered by terror, so shocked that he believes he has dreamed “too hard”, so much so that he gets blood from his nose. This is how De André tells the story with a capital S: not through the dates or names of the “great” generals, but through the eyes of the victims. With empathy.

Will you continue to be chosen or will you finally choose

De André woke up Enrica Rignon, his first wife, in the middle of the night, to make her hear “They will come to ask you about our love” on the piano: they both burst into tears. Many might see in it a reflection of Fabrizio’s private life: the end of his “hair-tearing” love with Puny, the pressure from the tabloid newspapers on his relationship with Dori Ghezzi. But that song and that passage in particular summarize well the idea that the Genoese singer-songwriter had of love in general: it had to be free, strong, passionateand to do so he could also go against the grain. Even in a bigoted country like ours. More broadly, in a society that flattens us, that would like to decide for us what to do and what to think, Deandre’s verses are an invitation to protect your dignity.

In the pity that does not give in to resentment, mother, I have learned love

The song is called “Il testamento di Tito”, but we could also call it “Fabrizio’s will“, because De André’s rereading of the apocryphal Gospels in the “Good News” contains much – if not all – of his spirit. “In the piety that does not give in to resentment, mother, I have learned love”: this is what Tito says, the “good thief” on the cross, who, turning to his mother, takes the last and most difficult step of his human evolution. Throughout the song, Tito analyzed the Ten Commandments, demonstrating how they have often been used by power to oppress or how they have been emptied of meaning by hypocrisy. But at the very end, in the moment of agony, Tito discovers something that the law had not taught him: love is not a concept that is learned by heart or that is pursued out of fear of hell; in pity that does not give in to rancoror in the continuum seeking forgiveness and understanding the suffering of others. Easier said than done, but not for De André, so deeply immersed in this vision of humanity that he forgave the kidnappers who kidnapped him and Dori for four months. Suffering is not eternal, and is more bearable if shared. “This light rain will pass just as pain passes.”