Describing and narrating the poetry, words and music of Francesco Guccini means dealing with almost forty years of the history of our country. Author of texts of undisputed literary value which also earned him the Montale , Guccini Prize and one of the cornerstones of the “made in Italy” songwriting.
To enter his world of music and words, you have to follow the thread of the stories that make up his records, in which his soul as a modern singer-songwriter, refined author of verses and political singer-songwriter emerges. The ability to know how to transform the topics covered in his texts into real poems through music can be seen in his songs, in particular in “The old man and the child”. A text in which an almost fairytale past is told by an old man in the eyes of a child, intent on living the present. A fairy tale of disenchantment and dramatic
The story narrated by Guccini from the beginning highlights an analogy between the two figures . The old man and the child represent, each with their own identity and aspirations, the very journey of man. A path that in the eyes of the old is defined as uncertain, fragile, tired, full of nostalgia and resignation with respect to the more hopeful future of the child.
On the journey, accompanying the child by the hand, the old man finally feels free to tell about himself and his vision of the world with a certain amount of disenchantment and regret.. The words that make up his thoughts, highlight both situations of his experience and of his residual hopes, of what it was for him but also of what the world reserves for future generations. The environmental disaster
Continuing to follow the thread of the story, one can also intuit in Guccini the theme of environmental devastation which, in the text, is treated in a very delicate and particular way. The devastation theme arose probably due to a nuclear war symbolized by red dust, untrue sunlight and columns of smoke.
The old man tells the child with a nostalgic gaze, of how beautiful that expanse of wheat made of trees and flowers, of colors and voices was before. The story, full of emotion and tears in the eyes, appears to the child as an invention.
This is because today all this seems to have disappeared, so much so that the child will turn to the old man at the end saying: ” I like fairy tales, tell others “. A hesitation, that of the child, which will turn into an illusion even for the old man, who after having suffered “the insults of the years”, is no longer able to distinguish the truth from the dreams. Guccini at Pordenonelegge, “I don’t write songs anymore, now I write books”
Francesco Guccini at Pordenonelegge tells about his Pavana, his village of origin, where he now lives writing books and remembering the past . The text
An old man and a child took each other by the hand
and went together in the evening;
the red dust rose in the distance
and the sun shone with untrue light …
The immense plain seemed to reach
as far as a man’s eye could look
and there was no one around:
only the gloomy outline of smoke towers …
The two walked, the day fell,
the old man spoke and cried softly:
with his soul absent, with wet eyes,
he followed the memory of past myths …
The old suffer the ravages of the years,
they do not know how to distinguish truth from dreams,
old people do not know, in their thoughts,
to distinguish false from true in dreams …
And the old man said, looking away:
“Imagine this one covered with wheat,
imagine the fruits and imagine the flowers
and think of the voices and thinks of the colors
and in this plain, as far as it is lost,
trees grew and everything was green,
the rain fell, the suns marked the
rhythm of man and the seasons … ”
The child stood still, his gaze was sad,
and his eyes looked at things never seen before
and then he said to the old man in a dreamy voice:
“I like fairy tales, tell others!”
