Monday 3 September 2012

Turn the card over

I know, I know, I uploaded this song before. But I listened to it and this rediscovered it recently and I thought I would upload it again, just for the sake of it. My mother yesterday reminded me that I have a box set of Italian lessons to go through and that I should learn the language instead of spending so much time blogging. She is right of course, but I am more inspired around autumn, so it kind of sucks, I have to little time in the evening. But I want to be able to appreciate this song for more than its music, to be able to understand it effortlessly, without reading the translation. Fabrizio de André is a great artist, he also is a great admirer of Georges Brassens, which songs he translated. Volta la carta is a song about the changing and arbitrary nature of fate, I think, with images of tarot and Italian superstitions giving shape and colour to the uncertainty of life. It is beautiful and evocative, a perfect song for the change of seasons. I preferred the first interpretation I uploaded, which was from a concert in 1998, performed a year before Fabrizio de André's death, which fittingly makes this song his swan song. I decided however to upload this earlier version.

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