For Vinicio Capossela, Christmas songs are rock ‘n’ roll

We’ve been talking about Vinicio Capossela’s Christmas album for years and finally here it is: “Sciusten feste n.1965” was released on Friday 25 October. But it’s not a Christmas album, or at least it’s not just that.
Christmas songs are a very American tradition, which often descends into kitsch and which has never caught on in Italy. as we talked about here. Vinicio had talked about his passion for the genre on Rockol some time ago.

That passion took the form of an object: “Sciusten feste n.1965” is a record of music for parties in the broad sense of the term because, Rockol explains to Capossela, there is a need for a bit of light in this period historical darkness: this collection of 15 songs with originals and remakes – or rather transfigurations – of classics is his contribution.

Christmas songs or holiday songs?

“We were always so busy celebrating and playing for Christmas that it always got postponed from year to year,” jokes Capossela, on the long gestation of the album. The celebrations are the traditional ones, for 25 years, of the Christmas concerts at Fuori Orario in Gattatico, which have also become a film recently presented at the Rome Film Festival.

Capossela welcomes me into his office-studio in Milan, a legendary place full of his props: hats everywhere, instruments, all sorts of strange knick-knacks. He pours me a glass of water with a fish-shaped jug that makes a strange sucking noise – like that of a fish, in fact. In one corner there is a pianola with the album cover and a small electric candelabra that almost looks like a votive altar. At a certain point he approaches and starts singing “Il Guastafeste”, the song that closes the album: “My good mood bothers me, my disagreement cheers me up”.
It is this duality of feelings that animates the songs on the album, the joy of Christmas and the melancholy of the holidays in general: “I think that the holiday, in itself, is one of the most ancestral manifestations of humanity, in contrast with the inhumanity of this period.

And then in any case the winter holidays are always an opportunity for a bit of interiority, for a reckoning. In most Christmas stories there is something good, some form of redemption.” .

Those on this album, however, are songs with a broader scope: “For me the holiday period is December, it’s not just Christmas. It’s the season of ghosts, and it’s also the season of storytelling and stories. There is a dimension of intimate celebration, at home, since the word derives from Festia, the divinity of the hearth. But there is also a dimension of euphoria and revelry.”

Christmas songs are dangerous in Italy

Natalde’s songs have never taken root in our country, except in rare cases. Why then celebrate this music? “Making a holiday album, particularly in Italy, is a very dangerous thing. There’s the risk of doing something truly kitsch, because that’s how the Christmas party is, in the times of unbridled consumption… It’s a bit like organizing a party: you can also make a great impression of shit. But I am comforted by the fact that these songs are born from a true story, they have their own truth,” he explains.
The album was recorded during Christmas, not in the summer, as often happens, to be ready for the winter market.

And it was recorded on a particular Christmas, 4 years ago, in the midst of the pandemic, when all revelry was prohibited. With a real band – portrayed in the photo of the vinyl insert, which Capossela proudly shows me: .

“Returning to Italy”, he continues, “Apart from Alfonso Maria de’ Liguori who wrote You come down from the stars, there are no other Christmas standards. There’s the wonderful folklore tradition, but that’s another thing. There’s a tradition of covers, with the lyrics of Christmas standards translated into Italian in a somewhat… not particularly rock ‘n’ roll way, let’s say. Instead, the wonderful thing is that in the Anglo-Saxon world many songs are rock’n’roll.”
“Christmas is rock’n’roll,” he smiles.

Capossela, on the other hand, rewrote several classics in Italian, in his own way.

The Santa Claus who comes to town ultimately commits suicide because he can’t deliver gifts like Amazon. The “hooker” of Tom Waits’ “Christmas card” lives between Scandiano and Reggio Emilia. “Jingle bells” becomes “Campanelle” in a swing version, in the manner of the Italian American Lou Monte, who is one of the references of the album together with Louis Prima, who “recorded these wonderful live albums in Las Vegas hotels and they can also be heard the noises of glasses and plates: this crazy swing is the most festive thing there is”. Louis Prima also lent his voice to the monkey in “The Jungle Book” and so the album also includes “I wanna be like you”, from the soundtrack, because few things are more Christmassy than a Disney film.

Rock and punk Christmas

Christmas is not just rock ‘n’ roll, but punk: “We started this whole thing just for the love of the Pogues and ‘Fairytale of New York’. Shane McGowan was born on December 25th and wrote the most disastrous Christmas song in history. It’s punk and at the same time has something traditional. It’s a song to sing while screaming toothlessly, you must be missing at least 2-3 teeth to sing it well… There’s something heroic and annoying at the same time, it mixes love, insults and arguments. These feelings, so contrasting, so violent, so excessive, honor Christmas, where death and life, melancholy and euphoria, solitude and embrace mix together.”
The song is actually not present on the album, it is only in the film “Christmas Out of Hours”: Christopher Wonder usually sings it in Christmas concerts, with his partner on duty: “always with great qualities but not singing”, he smiles Capossela.

Dressed for the holidays, live

Capossela will also bring the spirit of this album and of the Fuori Orario concerts live and with a Christmas tour (here are the dates). A series of concerts “standing up, because if there is no physicality there is no revelry”.

The band from the album will be there, it will be a concert played but, he explains, with also a bit of circus spirit and enchantment, with the presence of a circus artist, Nadia Addis, who will embody the spirit of the holidays. From 12 December there will also be Christopher Wonder arriving from America at the concerts: in Milan the show will take place in a specially built tent in the Carroponte area, with curtains and lights, a “fairytale place”, he defines it.
There will be the now traditional concerts on the 25th and 26th at Fuori Orario, but also a winter version of the Sponz Festival which closes this cycle on the Epiphany weekend. All entitled “Conciati per le festa”: it is a perfect definition of the music and effects of Christmas, according to Capossela.