The bad road (F. De Andre)
At the military parade I
spit in the eyes of an innocent
and when he asked “Why”
he replied “This is nothing
and now and now that I go”
and the innocent followed him,
without weapons you follow him
on his bad way.
On the avenues behind the station
I steal the cash from a queen
and when she told him “How”
he replies “Maybe it’s better and as before
maybe it’s now that I go”
and the queen followed him
with her pain she followed him
on her bad Street.
And on a moonless night I
trick a pilot’s stars
when
he said “It’s the fault of those who die
anyway and I better go”
and the pilot follows him
without the stars you follow him
on his bad road.
To an eighteen year old alcoholic I
poured a little more
and while he was looking at
him he said “Dude I bet you are going to tell me
now and now that I go”
the alcoholic understood him
said nothing and followed him
on his bad path.
At a trial for love I
kiss the mouths of the jurors
and to their embarrassed looks
he replied “Now it’s more normal
now it’s better, now it’s right, right, it’s right
that I go”
and the jurors followed him
open-mouthed they followed him
on his bad way,
on his bad way.
And when you shoot completely
to those who said “It was bad”
to those who said “It was good”
I recommend “You don’t want to
come with me wherever I go,
but there is love a bit for everyone
and everyone has a love
on the bad way
on the bad way.
Obsessions are sometimes referred to as absurd thoughts. The absurdity derives from the experience of the forcing to which the person feels subjected, while the contents themselves are often normal and understandable contents. The ways out are the ritualistic one and that of the explanation, in the first case an obsessive-compulsive disorder is obtained, and in the second a so-called pure obsessive disorder, in which the ritual is there but it is mental, and consists in thinking and mulling over to find the most satisfying, exhaustive and definitive explanation (naturally with the basic defect that it is also a reassuring explanation). In any case, a dead end that moreover the more one proceeds the more it narrows, in theory with the illusion of arriving at a precise and unequivocal outlet, in practice preventing one from living life.
In the awareness and in the approach to obsession and ritual, techniques of overturning logic are useful, since the ritual, mental or behavioral, is not absurd in its logic but is indeed hyper-logical, that is a logical solution where there is no it can be any, or where if any is not yet available. For this reason the “third way” between never sufficient reassurance and uncertainty anxiety is that of neutralization of the question, of the obsession itself, in a way that is not reassuring but taking it to another level.
In this song by De Andre the obsession is extended, it is a moral obsession of the whole society, a cultural obsession. The whole society lives in rituals and brooding aimed at understanding what is right through condemnation and the removal of what is wrong, but what is right in the end is only what remains, and this does not give satisfaction. Conversely, the wrong seems to change from time to time, and in any case it is never enough, for which man is crushed by a world that is increasingly hiding in unlikely niches of justice and correctness after having given up everything, but above all to live spontaneously.
The solutions proposed by De Andre are examples of a “paradoxical” exit from the obsessive mechanism.
1st verse: the character spits in the face of an innocent,
“, he does not justify him but adds to the dose by saying” this and nothing! ” of having to follow increasingly suffocating rules for a reward or protection that is not necessarily there. De Andre therefore restores a vision in which to feel right it is not necessary to feel “innocent”, which if you want it is also a vision proper to the preaching of Christ.
2nd verse: a prostitute cancels the price of her condition (marginalization, symbolized by the avenues behind the station) with the collection. The character takes it away from her, and then tells her “now is better, and as before”. It is very similar to the mechanism in which instead of answering the obsessive question like “I have to worry
“, or “I made the right choice
” you avoid reassurance. Instead of spinning the infinite wheel of reassurance, the mechanism stops, we stop at the question, without continuation. Because without an answer the obsession “is better, and as before”: in fact the answers over time worsen the obsessions, which were simpler and less intrusive at the beginning, when there were still no rituals.
3rd verse: An airplane pilot looks for the way by orienting himself with the stars, the bad guy of the song “tricks” them and the plane falls, and the moral is that “it’s the fault of those who die”. It is not the fault of the unclear stars (as the obsessive pilot fears), nor of those who have confused them (as the obsessive pilot who fell from his attempted control would think at first glance), but it is the fault of those who die, that is the obsessive pilot who sooner or later he will fall into this obsession with control because control will no longer be enough, or in any case he will not have lived.
4th verse: The only one that does not return in therapeutic terms. But … The alcoholic drinks and certainly won’t stop until he’s done. Instead of admonishing or criticizing him, the character still pours him a drink, and he doesn’t drink and follows him in amazement. If alcoholism were an obsession (it is not) it would work like this, that is to “push” saturation of the ritual. Purposely multiplying the quantity of “ritual” deprives it of its value as a response to obsession, and therefore induces the person to reject it. In alcoholism it doesn’t work like that, but it must be said that the attitude of non-judgment improves the person’s ability to ask for help.
V ^. The trial for love, an allegory of the obsessive question, which puts anything “on trial”, even a feeling, a starting truth, and kills spontaneity. The obsession is represented by the jury and the judge, that is the person who gives the answers and approves them. Instead the character interrupts the trial and kisses the mouths of the jurors, that is, he substitutes an action that calls the object of the trial (love) to the abstract judgment on what love is right or wrong. All this recalls precisely the contrast between the obsessive issues that distort the spontaneous and natural elements (and pose a “why” for example on feelings, inclinations, preferences) and the act, practice, experience that resolve everything. without going through an answer,
These are therefore examples that recall the conceptual mechanism of psychological techniques or of the course of a pharmacological treatment against obsessions, that is, how the obsession and its ritual are dismantled, and how one avoids following it through the apparent compensation mechanism (reassurance , clarification) which at first always seems to the obsessive the best way, or at least indispensable. The exit, on the other hand, is at the end of what would seem to the obsessive patient precisely the “bad way” …
