About the former, Ciabattoni recalls the particular link to the tradition of literary anarchism, and his debt to novelists and poets of the Beat Generation (Kerouac, Ginsberg) and, more generally, to American authors (Salinger, Steinbeck, Hemingway, Caldwell). In analyzing Vecchioni’s Blu(e) notte ( Samarcanda, 1977), the author demonstrates, in fact, that, by establishing a dialogue with the poetry of both Sandro Penna and Giovanni Pascoli, this text creates a provocative mix of literary allusions which proposes a concept of non-traditional and anti-patriarchal love hardly graspable from just the literal meaning of the song’s lyrics.The same approach is adopted in addressing the production of Francesco Guccini and Angelo Branduardi, respectively discussed in chapters 2 and 3. Ciabattoni, however, focuses on Vecchioni’s subtler mode of literary allusion, proving his approach to be readily effective. Vecchioni is known for displaying his literary citations on the very surface of his songs, inserting easily identifiable literary elements into his texts and titles. Despite acknowledging that the genre of the song “non ha davvero bisogno di un pubblico esperto nell’arte allusiva per esistere, per vendere e perfino per essere una forma d’arte legittima” (13), the author argues for the inextricable necessity of investigating these allusions not as decorative embellishments of the lyrics but, rather, as essential features through which the texts’ inner meanings unfold.The first chapter, dedicated to Roberto Vecchioni, already clearly shows Ciabattoni’s particular insight.
Compared to other cantautori, De André’s literary knowledge has been more thoroughly explored, thanks to both the songwriter’s explicit tributes to some literary texts (as for example the famous musical. Instead, Branduardi is discussed in relation to his tendency to set entire literary texts to music, drawing inspiration from different traditions (Italian, French, German, but also Hebraic, Chinese, and Native-American) and different ages (from antiquity to modernity) to make these texts sound new through his music.Chapter 4 focuses on the literary intertexts of the songs of Fabrizio De André.
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