Jannacci and Massini: a piece of denunciation on white deaths

Paolo Jannacci, musician, singer-songwriter and son of Enzo, and Stefano Massini, writer and narrator, were guests at the Sanremo Festival on Thursday 8 February with “L’uomo nel lampo”, an unreleased song of social denunciation. Arrangement and orchestra conducted by maestro Maurizio Bassi. Jannacci and Massini have long consolidated their artistic relationship thanks to the theatrical show “Storie” produced by Piccolo Teatro di Milano which has seen them protagonists in the major Italian theaters since 2020. On the stage of the Ariston Massini and Jannacci played and interpreted a song about a serious wound in our country: deaths at work.

These are Jannacci’s words to present it to the press: “The piece is a small contribution in a poetic key, so as not to forget those who died at work and to always keep ourselves on our guard, because our lives depend on it. Italy is a democratic republic founded on work, but we often forget about it. I can’t say anything else because I’m just an acrobat… But we know: acrobats have always told bitter truths.”

Then Massini: “It is a dialogue in music. There is a father who died very young in an accident at work, one of those who plague our news, without making the news to the point that they no longer cause scandal because work has become a wild west and rights are a luxury. The addiction to the so-called white deaths is now a fact, and with this theater-song piece we try to lift the veil of narcosis. The song is a small portrait of life, dramatic because crystallizes an impossible dialogue: from that photograph hanging in the living room, the father never stops talking to his son, who in the meantime grows into the legend of that father who died in a flash.”