Sbagliando s'impera

Non c’è due senza tre. E il vecchio Robert fuma in tv (BBC Channel four) senza pavidità.

Di questa sono bellissime e profonde (anche) le parole.

Given free will but within certain limitations,
I cannot will myself to limitless mutations,
I cannot know what I would be if I were not me,
I can only guess me.

So when I say that I know me, how can I know that?
What kind of spider understands arachnophobia?
I have my senses and my sense of having senses.
Do I guide them? Or they me?

The weight of dust exceeds the weight of settled objects.
What can it mean, such gravity without a centre?
Is there freedom to un-be?
Is there freedom from will-to-be?

Sheer momentum makes us act this way or that way.
We just invent or just assume a motivation.
I would disperse, be disconnected. Is this possible?
What are soldiers without a foe?

Be in the air, but not be air, be in the no air.
Be on the loose, neither compacted nor suspended.
Neither born nor left to die.

Had I been free, I could have chosen not to be me.
Demented forces push me madly round a treadmill.
Demented forces push me madly round a treadmill.
Let me off please, I am so tired.
Let me off please, I am so very tired.

Che questa piaccia quasi soltanto a me, ne sono abbastanza sicuro. Inconfondibile lo zampino (voce, arrangiamento e sintetizzatore – qiuindi almeno 3 zampini) di Brian Eno.

I realised my fists were clenched,
I stretched my fingers to relax.
Still not sleeping, I tried counting sheep.
One by one,
They leapt across the fence
Constructed for them,
Right to left,
Across the fence I bad constructed.
Having jumped,
They refused further direction.

Each sheep, where it landed,
Refusing to exit, remained.
(Certain a vast writhing heap
Growing fast on the left).
Try as I might,
I could not stop them entering
Once again.
Try as they might,
Not one could leave the stage.
I realised my fists were clenched.
I stretched my fingers.

Each sheep were it landed,
Refusing to exit, remained.
(Creating a vast writhing heap
Growing quickly on one side).
Try as they might,
Not one could leave the stage,
Try as I might,
I could not stop them entering,
Once again.
No longer daring to close my eyes,
Still not sleeping.

I realised my goose was cooked
I wondered shipshaped on the shore.

Canzoni che piacciono (quasi) solo a me.

You look different every time you come
From the foam-crested brine
Your skin shining softly in the moonlight
Partly fish, partly porpoise, partly baby sperm whale
Am I yours? Are you mine to play with?
Joking apart – when you’re drunk you’re terrific when you’re drunk
I like you mostly late at night you’re quite alright
But I can’t understand the different you in the morning
When it’s time to play at being human for a while please smile!
You’ll be different in the spring, I know
You’re a seasonal beast like the starfish that drift in with the tide
So until your your blood runs to meet the next full moon
You’re madness fits in nicely with my own
Your lunacy fits neatly with my own, my very own
We’re not alone

Canzoni che piacciono soltanto a me.

Ovviamente (excusatio non petita) non è dedicata a mia moglie.

Che lo crediate o no la canzone (1975) è di Claudio Baglioni.

In effetti Donna felicità è ai limiti dell’osceno.

E devo confessare che non mi piace nemmeno questa (L’ultimo spettacolo), che ci propone Jacopo Belbo: perché Vecchioni sembra sempre che stia per piangere? Le parole sono belle, ma – a parte qualche inciso – la canzone a me pare troppo elementare, troppo inno (nel senso di anthem)… anche se cresce e la seconda metà è meglio della prima. Mi perdonino i fan.

Una delle canzoni più brutte della storia. E l’ha scritta Roberto Vecchioni.

Scusate il ritardo. Lo ricordiamo con una bella e poco conosciuta canzone di Paul Simon, The Late Great Johnny Ace in 2 versioni.

La prima è quella che compare sull’album Hearts and Bones (l’arrangiamento e la coda sono di Philip Glass):

La seconda è stata registrata al Concert in Central Park, ma non compare sul CD perché rovinata da un esaltato:

I was reading a magazine
And thinking of a rock and roll song
The year was nineteen fiftysix
And I hadn’t been playing that long
When a man came on the radio
And this is what he said
He said I hate to break it to his fans
But Johnny Ace is dead, yeah, yeah, yeah

Well, I really wasn’t
Such a Johnny Ace fan
But I felt bad alI the same
So I sent away for his photograph
And I wait untill it came
It came all the way from Texas
With a sad and sim-ple face
And they signed it on the bottom
From the Late Great Johnny Ace, yeah, yeah, yeah

It was the year of The Beatles
It was the year of The Stones
It was nineteen sixtyfour
I was living in London
With the girl from the summer be-fore

It was the year of The Beatles
It was the year of The Stones
A year after J.F.K.
We were staying up all night
And giving the days away
And the music was flowing amazing
And blowing my way

On a cold December evening
I was walking through the Christmas tide
When a stranger came up and asked me
If I’d heard John Lennon had died
And the two of us went to this bar
And we stayed to close the place
And every song we played
Was for The Late Great Johnny Ace, yeah, yeah, yeah

Il brouhaha mediatico, le pellicce (quasi rimpiango i bei tempi in cui si tiravano le uova), i politici amusi e le loro mogli, il chiacchiericcio del foyer, le consunte polemiche sulla regia rischiano di farci perdere di vista che quella di Tristano e Isotta è una delle storie d’amore più belle mai raccontate. Proprio quella di Wagner, che (evidentemente) sapeva che cos’è un amore tanto difficile da sembrare impossibile.

Abbandonate ogni pregiudizio (Wagner è difficile, Wagner è prolisso, Wagner è pomposo). Abbandonatevi alla musica. E – anche se non è considerato elegante dirlo in buona società – ascoltate il preludio del Tristano e Isotta per quello che è, la descrizione, la trasfigurazione sonora di un incontro d’amore fisico, dal primo accordo inaudito, aperto, titubante, come una mano che sfiora ancora incerta un altro corpo, all’incalzare del ritmo, al suo crescere, fino all’orgasmo, ai brividi che vengono dopo, all’effimera pace.

Buon ascolto.