"The school taught me many things, many wars for example, but it did not teach me about peace": Enrico De Angelis, a profound connoisseur of songwriting, writes it in his book
'I cultivate a white rose'
which researches and reconstructs antimilitarism and nonviolence in the works of
Tenco, De Andrè, Jannacci, Endrigo, Bennato and Caparezza.
"The volume - explains the author - focuses mainly on the lyrics, but as always, everything else should be kept in mind: the song should be read at the same time with music, rhythm, voice, intention of the song, stage presence, etc. Think of strength interpretative of artists such as Jannacci, Bennato, Caparezza ... I made the choice of the six with a purely quantitative criterion: those who in song have touched on hints of antimilitarism and nonviolence to a more massive extent and with continuity never abandoned. touched on those topics (Guccini, Gaber, De Gregori, Fossati, Vecchioni, Virgilio Savona, Silvestri ...) but these six did so with surprising insistence and consistency ".
The historical path goes from the 60s (with some of the very first anti-militarist songs of the modern era) to the rap of Caparezza.
"Sensitivity - explains De Angelis - was born in the 1960s, with a sequence of songs on the recurring basic situation of the soldier who does not return from the war: Ballad of the hero De Andrè '61, The war Endrigo '63, The war by Piero De Andrè '64, The ballad of the sailor Tenco '64, I saw them return Tenco '66, The evening my father Jannacci left '68. The soldier is often equated with the equally unfortunate enemy who, equally, from the war come back".
The portraits of Milo Manara and Massimo Cavezzali (PHOTO) embellish the volume.