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.

An Italian commemoration

I blogged about Italy in the past. Today, I have a perfect excuse to blog about it more. I learned from an Italian friend I mentioned before that today is the anniversary of the death of Fabrizio De André. I know close to nothing about the man, even his name I had forgotten until yesterday. Back in my younger years, in 2000, my Italian friend made me listen to De André's take on Georges Brassens's songs. He admired Brassens a lot she told me, so it is enough to like the guy.

I have never been as into Italy as I was into England, but I have some kind of attraction towards it. I love the language quite a lot, the gastronomy, some of their writers. I always regretted I never learned Italian properly. I always wanted to learn a third language. Being bilingual is nothing, inconsequential almost, in our day and age. And I always wanted this third language to be Italian. Strangely enough, I never had much interest about Italian music. I enjoy Ennio Morricone and of course a lot of operas are sung in Italian, but while I always loved the operas in Italian, I have never been a big fan of Italian operas, operas composed by Italians. A bit too sugary for my taste. And of modern Italian music, of course, I know close to zilch. However, I am always willing to learn more. My friend seems to consider Fabrizio De André has high as I consider Leonard Cohen. That is also enough for me to decide to gather more about him and listen to him. I found this song on youtube, which is quite poetic and I love the tune, so I decided to put it here. It will change from the usual stuff I put on this blog and it is a new musical experience to me. I am getting into uncharted territories. Here are the lyrics in their original Italian and translated into English.