The story of “heaps”, which Max Pezzali did not sing for 30 years
It is May 1993 when in music stores it arrives “North South West Est“, The second album of the 883. One year after the sensational exploit with” They killed the spider man “, 700 thousand copies sold – when the discs were really bought, ten years before streaming – thanks to hit as” I don’t lead me “,” 6/1/loser “,” With a decay “and of course” they killed the spider man “, Max Pezzali and Mauro Repetto. From the start, hundreds of thousands of very young people take place throughout Italy the music stores, ready to bring home the CD or the musicsest of the new work of the duo launched by Claudio Cecchetto and to consume them. It perfects it: Between pop, rock and even a little rap, pezzali and Repetto return to tell the world of the province of that precise moment of the history of our country (“New mats, Arbre Magique / Deodorante just taken that makes a lot of chic”: the first two verses of “six a myth” remain pure zeitgeist, the spirit of the time of those years), but also the desire to escape from that same context (“north, south, west, east / and perhaps what I am looking for”). But There is a piece that somehow screeches with the rest of the disc, at least at the level of atmospheres and mood. And no, it is not “as never”, the only ballad of the duo, a piece destined to become a classic of Italian pop. When the fans put the CD or the “North South West Est” musicsest in the stereo and arrive at track number nine, after the various “you are a myth”, “route x house of God”, “North South West Est”, “But why” and “Weekend”, they find themselves listening to an unsettling song. At times even poignant. It is titled “Heaps“And in the text Max Pezzali speaks of “swords to fill the void within us”.
Here the complete text of “heaps”
The plague of heroin in Italy of the 90s
To any boy from Italy in those years the true meaning of the term “swords” is known. It’s not about weapons. The swords in question are the syringes to inject the heroin. The spread of the substance had exploded in Italy in the 70s and 80s, to reach alarmed peaks in the early 90s. In 1991, about 200 thousand heroinomaniacs were estimated throughout the peninsula and Milan, just forty kilometers away from Pavia di Repetto and Pezzali, according to the statistics of the time it was among the most affected cities. According to the reports of 1993, 89.1% of the new entrances in treatment services for drug addictions in Italy reported heroin as the main drug and a study on deceased for overdose in the north-east area of Italy highlighted as among the 2,708 deaths related to heroin 37% was due to overdose (and 32.5% to AIDS). In the text of “Cumuli”, written by Mauro Repetto, the 883 turn to a friend. The first verse is a clear photograph of the habits of the provincial boys: “Motorcycle from cross, you were capable and I no / zündapp on two, I and I / by looking for the busty in Barona that was never there, Seh-Eh-Eh / Tosti from God, convinced that the future was our / at my house, I and I, to laugh at my dad’s porn.” But those verses only of the memories. The friend was lost on the street: “Then over time I maybe lost a little / I saw you around you slamming / you called me just for loans / I looked at you in the face and you were not you,” sings Pezzali in the bridge. Then comes the refrain and is a stone: «Heaps of stuff and swords, to fill the void within us / heaps of your cocks, to fill the void of your cocks». The heaps, of course, are precisely those of the heroine.
The protagonist of the song
The protagonist of the song, the friend to whom Pezzali and Repetto turn, really exists. It is one of those guys who in those years end up filling the void they have inside with heroin. He will reveal his identity himself, a year after the release of “North South West Est”: Alberto Marchesi, called “Yè Yè”, a friend of the two, who grew up with them in Pavia, who tells his story in the book “Heaps of stuff and swords“(Subtitle:” From the song of 883 the story narrated by the protagonist “), which has now become A collectible object among the long -standing fans of 883speaking of its detoxification path. “Here you are, happy that we have waited for you, she tells a little, what it is that you make you do in the community, we are proud of you,” he sang Pezzali in the verses of “heaps”, with a happy ending.
A song that has become a cult
For thirty years “heaps” remained a song of worship: after the “North South West Est” tour he no longer sung it. Until Saturday evening, when after listening to the requests of 85 thousand spectators who showed up at the Mega-Rauno of “Max Forever Grand Prix” at the Enzo and Dino Ferrari car in Imola finally decided to dust off the song: “The theme was sensitive: he spoke of heroin. Today with this piece I made peace“, he said. Moreover, in recent years, the cult status of “heaps” have also thought of special homages of “cumuli”. In 2023 Zerocalcare He inserted the song into the soundtrack of his Netflix animated series “This world will not make me bad”a dip in the 90s: “I place that for me the 883 are the best thing that has happened to the Italian mainstream in the last 30 years – explained Zerocalcare in Adnkronos – the epic of the losers who grow in disfigured places first made me feel less alone, then it shaped my vision of the world and consequently my work”. CoezInstead, he said he was inspired by the 1993 song for “Summer 1998”, one of the songs contained in his latest album “1998”: «The theme is that (drug addiction, ed.). But I do not explain everything, I don’t enter so deeply on the matter, because in the end the protagonist of this song is a person that everyone at least once in his life could have met, we could be that person – said the Roman songwriter in Rockol – The piece speaks of those who leave. My song, unlike “heaps”, remains “open”, explains nothing by thread and by sign. For me the songs must be like this ».
The case of “if you return”
Four years after “Cumuli” Max Pezzali, meanwhile remaining orphan of Mauro Repetto, will return to speak in one of his songs of the heroine plague. He will do it with “If you come back“, Engraved in 1997 for the album” The hard law of the goal! “:”I saw you again this morning, in the newspaper your photo / lying on that bench, you didn’t seem even / maybe you were looking for it, maybe you were not strong / I don’t care, but I don’t know you are ready for death». The 90s were also and above all this.
