Those few hours that divide the birth of
Lucio Dalla
and
Lucio Battisti
,
on March 4 and 5, 1943
, looking at them today, through the clouded lens of the memory and the in absentia celebration of their
80th birthday
, end up becoming the first trace of a sidereal distance that divides the life and career of
two geniuses of Italian music
.
In the end it is an episode recounted by Dalla that offers the definitive image of this distance:
in 1984 the two met in a restaurant
.
The author of "How deep is the sea" was in the prime of his career, Battisti had already effectively closed his public life.
Dalla spoke of a tour together, which should have been called "I due Lucio" and of a possible album: "He listened without giving me any importance - he said -. Then he finished eating, wiped his mouth and said that it couldn't be done, that he felt very changed and that he was moving into a completely different musical quest".
The truth is that the two, apart from their personal data and an extraordinary talent for changing the rules of the song,
had very little in common
.
Lucio Dalla was an entertainer of existence, a man animated by a profound religiosity who lived in public, with an incredible wealth of friendships ranging from the homeless to the powerful of the earth, all inclusive, always at ease, also because it was he who dictated the rules: he transformed his date of birth into a musical masterpiece, his curiosity was insatiable, he always found a way to change without losing contact with the audience, he shared the stage with colleagues, he used television and the media very well, he loved the art and also experimented with musical forms close to opera.
Lucio Dalla died suddenly, on March 1, close to 70, in a hotel room after a concert at the Montreux Jazz festival.
ANSA. it
Goodbye Lucio Dalla, Italy mourns the 'Dear friend' - Specials
Died in Montreux in Switzerland on March 1, 2012, a few days before his 69th birthday © Ansa
Lucio Battisti stopped touring in 1970: he closed his ties with television on April 23, 1972 with the duet with Mina
, one of the most important musical performances in the history of TV,
a few months later he said goodbye to the radio and in 1979 he gave his last interview
.
In fact he escaped from the fame and success obtained thanks to the long association with Mogol who, if looked at carefully, has always been characterized by a desire to overcome conventions, ranging between genres.
ANSA Agency
The death of Lucio Battisti, from the archives of ANSA - Musica
Flash and breaking news (ANSA)
When
he died at the age of 55 from an illness
whose details are unknown, he was a sort of Pynchon of Italian song, a voluntary recluse who had spent a good part of his life arguing with the press (who knows how many today will regret certain ferocious slating) and published records increasingly immersed in a dilated electronics and increasingly distant from those written with Mogol for which he entered the collective memory.
And speaking of memory, there is an element that must be underlined:
Battisti's heirs only allowed the diffusion of his music on streaming platforms in 2019
and this decision meant that the new generations totally lost contact with his songs .
The feeling one gets today, always keeping the game of contrasts alive, is that Dalla is everyone's artist who never left, Battisti is well rooted in the hearts of the Boomers and Generation X.
Certainly in the age of social "heavenly birthdays" (they are birthdays celebrated post mortem), in the case of Dalla and Battisti's 80th birthday, it is impressive to think how many legendary songs these two extraordinary talents managed to produce.
But more than songs, these are authentic pieces of history that demonstrate how popular music is an instrument of knowledge and memory as extraordinary as it is necessary to better understand who we are.
And to better understand our country too, given that through the many artistic changes of these two giants, the changes of a society that through genres and musical innovations discovered its most real moods flow in filigree.
Grignani: "Lucio Battisti and Lucio Dalla my references"
Mengoni in Sanremo in 2013: "Lucio Dalla helped me in a dark moment"
Morandi sings March 4, 1943