La peste

Words & music by Vinicio Capossela (2019)

È arrivata prima che cadessero nazioni
corre nella rete è sangue è orgia è fornicazione
individualista e collettiva
infetta di rabbia e di saliva
attacca dentro il discernimento
abbassati sullo schermo
nella rivolta inerte fake news

La peste la peste
non la si vuol vedere la peste, la peste
non sapere la peste, la peste
meglio il simulacro
il capro, il capro
il nemico sempre c’è un untore
che venga da fuori che faccia mal odore
scorrono a cadaveri parole nel respiro della rete
a mucchi interi, a popolazioni, a decapitazioni
trovati un nemico per sentirti unito, unito nella peste

La meravigliosa peste virale
che tutti ci fa liberi
che tutti ci fa uguali
ora che tutto è produzione
e neanche a casa sei padrone
precarizzato, gentrificato, hipsterizzato
che venga la peste e liberi il divieto
che venga la peste, arda nella sete
disconnessi al mondo connessi nella rete

Let’s tweet again
let’s tweet again
let’s tweet again

La meravigliosa peste
che libera barbarie all’aria
che libera il tremendo dentro
dentro ognuno ad uno ad uno
la peste virale che libera e fa uguali
che libera e fa uguali

La pesta che ti colga
la pesta che ti colga
money is calling
rolling is calling
ti prendi l’influenza
is calling nella peste

La meravigliosa peste
che libera il bubbone
tutti in polluzione
vengo sullo schermo schizza e rolla
porno revenge everybody strange
trojan #foodporn
pubblico e ricatto la festa del monatto
e stai facendo il video brava, brava
ti taggo e ti sputtano
(la peste) fino a che ti ammazzi

Selfie servi, selfie servi
la peste è nella vita commenta e condividi
eins zwei like eins zwei like
Non risparmia Papi e reggenti
sovrani e presidenti
la governance mondiale
il popolo brutale
eins zwei like eins zwei like

let’s tweet again
let’s tweet again
let’s tweet again

Poi la mesta immobile col telefono mobile
con lo schermo in mano ti banno a sangue
ti oscuro e ti sputtano
la peste, la peste
l’italiano è primo
la peste, la peste
i mussulmani
la peste, la peste
i nuovi crociati, un altro medioevo
il vecchio fascio nero

La pesta che ti colga
liberati nella peste
avvinghiati nella peste

Let’s tweet again
let’s tweet again
liberati nella peste
ammorbati nella peste
la peste, la peste
che festa la peste
che festa nella peste

Atra mors, atra mors, atra mors

Non guardiamo il sole
mettimi nel tuo fuoco nobile
non parliamo insieme
mettimi nel tuo fermo immagine
foto

The Plague

Translated by: Francesco Ciabattoni

It came before the nations fell
it runs through the web it’s blood it’s orgy it’s fornication
individualistic and collective
infected with rage and saliva
it attacks your discernment
everyone stooped over a screen
in the lifeless revolt, fake news!
the plague, the plague

Nobody wants to see the plague, the plague
nobody wants to know the plague, the plague
a simulacrum is better
the scapegoat, the scapegoat
the enemy, there’s always a plague spreader
who comes from the outside who brings a foul smell
words are flowing like corpses in the web’s breath
in whole heaps, like populations, like decapitations
find an enemy so you can feel united, united in the plague

The wonderful viral plague
which makes us all free
which makes us all equal
now that everything is production
and you can’t be the boss in your own house anymore
jeopardized, gentrified, hipsterized
let the plague come and free us from the prohibition
let the plague come and burn in the thirst
all are disconnected from the world, connected to the web

Let’s Tweet again
let’s Tweet again
let’s Tweet again

The wonderful plague
which unleashes barbarity in the air
which unleashes the horror inside
inside each of us, one by one
the viral plague which makes us free and equal
which makes us free and equal

May the plague get you
may the plague get you
money is calling
rolling is calling
May you catch the flu
is calling in the plague

The wonderful plague
which frees the bubo
everyone is turned on
I’m coming on the screen and it squirts and rolls
porno revenge everybody strange
trojan #foodporn
I post and blackmail you, it’s the feast of the corpse carrier
and you’re shooting a video, very good
I’ll tag you and you’ll be ruined
(the plague) until you kill yourself

Selfie slaves, selfie slaves
the plague is in your life, comment and share
eins zwei like eins zwei like
it does not spare popes and rulers
sovereigns and presidents
the world governance
the brute populace
eins zwei like eins zwei like

Let’s Tweet again
let’s Tweet again
let’s Tweet again

Then the miserable immobile woman with a mobile phone
the screen in her hand, I’ll ban you to death
I’ll block you and I’ll ruin you
the plague, the plague
Italy first
the plague, the plague
the Muslims
the plague, the plague
the new crusaders, a new Middle Ages
the old fascist guy

May the plague get you
all freed in the plague
clutching one another in the plague

Let’s Tweet again
let’s Tweet again
all freed in the plague
all infected by the plague
the plague, the plague

what a party the plague
what a feast in the plague

Black death, black death, black death

We look up to the sun
put me in your noble fire
put me in your still frame
photo

The artist:

Vinicio Capossela

Vinicio Capossela (By Paolo Di Motoli, Università di Padova)

If we were to confer an honorary doctorate upon singer-songwriter Vinicio Capossela, the choice would be quite easy and the degree would surely be in Anthropology. As if to confirm our conviction, the author mentioned in one of his books (Nel paese dei coppoloni, Feltrinelli 2015) Ernesto De Martino, one of the most prominent Italian anthropologists whose studies on southern Italy still act as a roadmap to guide us through the myths, the roots, the symbols and rituals of that part of the world. The south, where the roots of our author lie embedded, is the hinterland, as he says, the Irpinia by which to orient ourselves on the colored map of Italy, the birthplace of his parents, while he himself was born in Hanover, Germany.

If we were to mention one of Vinicio’s first “participant observations” (a method often used by anthropologists) in music, we can’t help but cite the song “All’una e trentacinque circa” (At About One Thirty-Five) from the album of the same name produced in 1990. The world which our pianist observes, probably from a locale in Emilia-Romagna where he began his career, is that of a bar. His vantage point is privileged because it allows him to describe a series of customers with scant adjectives that nevertheless suffice to recreate the place and the characters who haunt it.

Capossela then surprises us and changes position and genre, recounting the final days in the life of the painter Amedeo Modigliani through the eyes of his beloved Jeanne Hébuterne (who later committed suicide). The song is called “Modì” and gives its name to his second album, released in 1991.

Capossela is always looking south, whether it be the southern US, mixing his own acoustics with popular jazz and swing sounds, or the south of Italy with its dances and its folk songs that emerge as powerfully as the smell of bonfires in village festivals on the album Il ballo di San Vito (Saint Vitus’s Dance). This album, from 1996, makes mention of those affected with tarantism, a disorder which Ernesto De Martino examined in his 1959 book entitled La terra del rimorso (The Land of Remorse).

There are numerous literary references in his songs, to Homer, Dante, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Federico Fellini, Geoffrey Chaucer, John Fante, Louis Férdinand Celine, Joseph Conrad and Herman Melville.

This latter is the inevitable reference point for the album Marinai profeti e balene (Sailors, Prophets, and Whales; 2011) which is conceived entirely around the notion of adventure, of the search for the sacred and the mystery evoked by the sea and by Melville’s literary epic. The richness of the album’s sounds makes it a sort of encyclopedic/all-encompassing work on the sea and its strength.

This theme was already present in the gloomy and spectral piece entitled “Santissima dei naufragati” (Most Holy Mother of the Shipwrecked; from the album Ovunque proteggi, 2006), inspired by Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner. One song on the album deserves a special mention: the vertiginous “Moskavalza,” a history of Russia from the Tsars to Chruščev, orchestrated with hard and steely sounds that give the feel of Eastern European techno.

The return to anthropology is marked by incursions into the music of Greek rebetiko in the album Rebetiko Gymnastas from 2012, which for the most part offers retakes of songs from previous albums set to the sounds of the baglamas, the lyra and the bouzouki, all typical of this genre, which became popular in Greece during the 1940s.

We arrive at the culmination of Capossela’s return to his roots, and the growing self-awareness of an artist who has long been much more than a mere musician or songwriter, with the double album of 2016 entitled Canzoni della cupa (Songs of the Dark), dedicated to the language, environment, and popular music of Irpinia, the birthplace of Vinicio’s parents and the land of his mother tongue. Myth, religion, and biblical figures mix with ancient and modern sounds, both strange and familiar (with echoes of Ennio Morricone from the Sergio Leone soundtracks) like the land of Herodias in the song “La notte di San Giovanni” (The Night of San Giovanni). It is an album featuring the collaboration of Los Lobos and Flaco Jimenez, bringing music from yet another “south” into a disorientating but wonderful mélange.

Read all the translations of Vinicio Capossela