Inverno ~ Winter

"Inverno", written and sung by Fabrizio De André, from the music album "Tutti morimmo a stento" ("We all died with difficulty") (1968, Bluebell Records).
This song describes the dark periods of our life, after that sometimes a hot summer come to console us. It's a tribute to the circle of the seasons, which are similar to life: seasons of warm joy after seasons of cold sadness.


Italian lyrics:

Sale la nebbia sui prati bianchi
come un cipresso nei camposanti
un campanile che non sembra vero
segna il confine fra la terra e il cielo.

Ma tu che vai, ma tu rimani
vedrai la neve se ne andrà domani
rifioriranno le gioie passate
col vento caldo di un'altra estate.

Anche la luce sembra morire
nell'ombra incerta di un divenire
dove anche l'alba diventa sera
e i volti sembrano teschi di cera.

Ma tu che vai, ma tu rimani
anche la neve morirà domani
l'amore ancora ci passerà vicino
nella stagione del biancospino.

La terra stanca sotto la neve
dorme il silenzio di un sonno greve
l'inverno raccoglie la sua fatica
di mille secoli, da un'alba antica.

Ma tu che stai, perché rimani?
Un altro inverno tornerà domani
cadrà altra neve a consolare i campi
cadrà altra neve sui camposanti.

English translation:

The fog goes up the white fields
like a cypress in the cemeteries
a steeplechase that doesn't seem true
show the border between the land and the sky.

But you're going, you stay here
you'll see, the snow will go away tomorrow
the past joys will blossom again
with the hot wind of another summer.

Also the light seems it's dying
in the uncertain shadow of a changing
where also the dawn becomes evening
and the faces seem skulls of wax.

But you're going, you stay here
the snow will also die tomorrow
Love will pass near us again
in the season of the hawthorn.

Tnder the snow, the tired soil
sleeps with the silence of a hard sleep
Winter pick up its thousand-year effort
from an ancient dawn.

But you staying here, why do you stay?
Another winter will come back tomorrow
other snow will fall consoling the fields
other snow will fall on the cemeteries.

Le nuvole ~ The clouds

"The clouds" is the intro of the homonymous music album (Ricordi-Fonit Cetra, 1990) written and performed by Fabrizio De André (1940-1990).

Italian lyrics:

Vanno, vengono
ogni tanto si fermano
e quando si fermano
sono nere come il corvo
sembra che ti guardano con malocchio

Certe volte sono bianche
e corrono
e prendono la forma dell'airone
o della pecora
o di qualche altra bestia
ma questo lo vedono meglio i bambini
che giocano a corrergli dietro per tanti metri

Certe volte ti avvisano con rumore
prima di arrivare
e la terra si trema
e gli animali si stanno zitti
certe volte ti avvisano con rumore

Vanno, vengono
ritornano
e magari si fermano tanti giorni
che non vedi più il sole e le stelle
e ti sembra di non conoscere più
il posto dove stai

Vanno, vengono
per una vera
mille sono finte
e si mettono li tra noi e il cielo
per lasciarci soltanto una voglia di pioggia.

English translation:

They go, they come
sometimes they stop
and when they stop
they're black like the crow
it seems they're putting a jinx on you

Sometimes they are white
and run
and take the shape of the heron
or the sheep
or some other beast
but this is better noticed by children
who play at running after them for a lot of metres

Sometimes they warn you with noise
before they come
and the land trembles
and the animals stay in silence
sometimes they warn you with noise

They go, they come
the come back
and maybe they stay so much days
that you don't see the sun and the stars anymore
and it seems you don't ever know
where you are

They go, they come
for a real one
there're thousand fakes
and they stay there, between us and the sky
letting us only a desire of rain

Comment:

The lyrics were written by De André, but they're performed by two women, a old one and a young one:

« I choosed Lalla Pisano and Maria Mereu because i thought their voices could well represent the "Mother Earth", which always watches the clouds running in the sky, and waits for the rain. It's explicit that "they stay there, between us and the sky": we are forced to look up to see them, but at the same time, bcause of them, we can't see something different or higher place    above them. So the clouds become something that makes decisionswithout consulting us, and we must obey but, even if they influence the life of all of us, actually they're made of nothing, they only are appearance going above us with indifference and carelessness, because we're whishing the rain... »
   
(Fabrizio De André, interviewed by Matteo Borsani and Luca Maciacchini)

The song takes inspiration from Νεφέλαι (Nephélai), a comedy written by the greek Aristophanes in 421~418 B.C.

« The "clouds", for the aristocratic Aristophanes, were those bad advisors that teach to the youngs how to contest; in particular, Aristophanes had it with sophists that teach to the new generations a new type of mental and behavioural innovative and provoking attitude with the conservative government of Athens in those days. The more dangerous "cloud" was Socrates, that Aristophanes unbelievably considered a sophist too.
But aside this, and aside the fact that aristophanes was an artist and so he was unconsciously a big innovator too, my "clouds" otherwise are those intrusive and looming people in our social, political and economical life; they are all the people afraid of the new, because tha new could subvert their social status.
[...]
The lower classes are affected by the "clouds", without any evident sign of protest. »
   
(Fabrizio De André, interview, 1990)

So Fabrizio De André represents with the "clouds" everything (and everyone) that is obstructing our freedom, especially the freedom of the weak people not able to protest and defend themselves.