Edoardo Bennato

With all due respect to Enzo D'Alò, the dark and malevolent readings given to "Le Avventure di Pinocchio – Storia di un Burattino" are not arbitrary: it is Collodi's book itself that, beneath the guise of a children's fable or coming-of-age novel, is a profoundly dark and malevolent work. It's no coincidence that its best interpretations are certainly not Walt Disney's overly sanitized version, nor, even less so, Roberto Benigni's syrupy take (which doesn't even have the excuse of being American), but not even the melancholy, if beautiful, TV adaptation by Luigi Comencini. In my humble opinion, those who best captured the spirit of the book were Benito Jacovitti, with his anarchic style, and Paolo Poli, with his old-aunt malice. Not to mention, of course, Edoardo Bennato.

In 1977, the Neapolitan singer-songwriter was keeping up the pace of one album a year (not unusual for the time), with ever-growing sales success and, artistically, without putting a foot wrong — indeed, coming close to a masterpiece at least a couple of times ("I buoni e i cattivi" and "La Torre di Babele"). Sure, if it weren't for the odd filler track here and there, for that always-over-the-top style that gives the impression it could derail at any moment, for that somewhat fake-naive attitude that occasionally grates... As with many artists of the era, even extremely gifted ones (Rino Gaetano was a striking example), there's always one "if" too many marking the gap between a great songwriter and his potential masterwork, the album destined for the history books. Edoardo Bennato manages to close that gap precisely thanks to a concept album about Pinocchio, which would remain the peak of his output — still valuable for a few more years, in any case.

From the cover alone (a photo of the singer dressed as an office worker in an empty office, wearing the half-astonished, half-sad expression of someone who's just realized he's been hired for that job — in the corner, a lifeless puppet), it's clear that, through Collodi's fable, Bennato intends to talk about something very current: power, the record industry, the condition of women, the intelligentsia, and above all, the misery and hypocrisy of adults laid bare through children's eyes. This last theme (used and overused by our man, so much so that Neri Marcorè's famous impression of him would become "bisogna torna' bambini!") runs through both the opening and closing tracks of the album. "È stata tua la colpa", a subdued yet poignant opener built almost entirely around acoustic guitar, harmonica and the percussion of the faithful Tony Esposito, while "Quando sarai grande" starts out as a lullaby made of just a few piano chords, before gradually swelling thanks to Robert Fix's horns.

Bennato's Pinocchio, in his determination to attain human status at all costs, makes the mistake of his life — the same one we all more or less make when we move from childhood into adulthood. Looked at closely, and contrary to appearances, this is actually a reading in line with Collodi's own thinking: the protagonist of the tale is a puppet who acts free of rules, living through dozens of fantastical adventures. What does the world "of flesh", by contrast, have to offer? Geppetto's wretched life? Institutions embodied by the Carabinieri, always ready to arrest him but nowhere to be found when it comes to defending him, or by the Judge of Catchfools? I'm convinced the author of the book would have signed off on the line "you used to be a puppet without strings, now instead you've got strings."

The songwriter's own invention, on the other hand, is the parallel drawn between Mangiafuoco and a power structure that labels any form of nonconformity as madness, in the second track, set to a folk-dance rhythm smudged with a touch of electric reverb. The same goes for the moving image of a Fairy lodged in the body of a girl with no power but her own beauty — because of which, however, she risks losing her freedom.

But Bennato truly excels when he wields the weapons of biting sarcasm and musical archetypes (whether American or Italian): "In Prigione, in Prigione" flaunts a wild, Jerry Lee Lewis-style piano rock (something of a self-plagiarism of the earlier "Meno male che adesso non c'è Nerone" — but since both are masterpieces, we can let it slide) and a caustic lyric that picks up the already-mentioned episode set in the town of Catchfools. "Dotti, Medici e Sapienti", meanwhile, opens with a string backing reminiscent of theatrical accompaniment and ends in a mad scramble, as poor sick Pinocchio/Edoardo is harshly examined by a panel of pompous, over-qualified idiots (be they university professors, TV sociologists or music critics).

The songwriter's scant sympathy for teachers of any kind also comes through in the blues of "Tu Grillo Parlante" — acoustic at first, then electric — aimed at overly rigid, self-important intellectuals. But the track that secures the album's place among the greats of Italian popular music is the hugely famous "Il Gatto e la Volpe", an irresistible bubblegum-pop number modeled on American rock straddling the '50s and '60s, with lyrics that mock a record industry always ready to exploit naive musicians with no other options. It is undoubtedly our man's best-known song (he can boast at least another twenty or so bona fide hit singles) as well as one of the most-played evergreens in the history of Italian radio.

"Burattino senza fili" turns out to be not only the most ambitious work Edoardo Bennato had made up to that point, but also the most cohesive and, artistically, the most accomplished. Perhaps because he was bound by the concept, the singer avoids excessive digressions (especially the zany kind, which would come roaring back on the following "Uffa Uffa" — one of his last flashes of genius before mannerism and mediocrity took over) to the great benefit of the album's listenability, which remains a model of unconventional, creative singer-songwriter craft.

Carlo Lorenzini would certainly have approved.

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28/10/2012