Volume 3＜限定盤＞

With V.3, Fabrizio De Andre confirmed a trend that would define the first part of his career, that of alternating singles and concept albums. Before becoming famous upon the release of his first LP, between 1961 and 1966 De Andre recorded several singles for the obscure Karim label (later available in the compilations Tutto Fabrizio de Andre and Nuvole Barocche). Once he started making LPs, De Andre appeared to work out an arrangement with producer Antonio Casetta that would allow him to explore new directions, provided that he also continued writing in the manner of his early songs -- which in the meantime had become very popular. Therefore, V.3, the second 1968 De Andre release, was sandwiched between the ambitious concept albums Tutti Morimmo a Stento (1968) and La Buona Novella(1970), but it consisted chiefly of previously released songs, albeit in improved, definitive versions. In fact, there is no new original material on V.3, as six of the album's ten songs had already appeared as singles and the other four consisted of two Georges Brassens covers and a 14th century French song (all three translated into Italian), and an adaptation of a Cecco Angiolieri text, a contemporary of Dante Alighieri who is considered the first Italian poet maudit. V.3 proved a very shrewd commercial initiative (reaching number one and staying in the Italian charts for two years), as it made widely available some of De Andre's best songs that people had been hearing about for years, but could not be easily found in stores. In fact, the two most famous songs of the entire De Andre repertoire, "La Canzone di Marinella" and "La Guerra di Piero," are both included on this album. These songs offer an excellent example of what constitutes De Andre's signature style, and why it was perceived as a revelation for the Italian audiences of the late '60s. While Italian pop music was usually dominated by novelty numbers, De Andre's songs sounded as if they were written several centuries ago. This impression resulted from the musical genres chosen -- such as waltzes, tarantellas, javas, and medieval ballads -- as well as from the poetic and anachronistic language employed. Even more important was the deliberate timelessness of the songs' settings. In "La Guerra di Piero," nothing in the song indicates as to when these events take place: Piero is the unknown, unwilling soldier from any war since the invention of gunpowder. Similarly, "La Canzone di Marinella" echoes the world and language of romance literature or fairy tales, but this could also be the story of any two ordinary, doomed lovers. Yet, De Andre was allegedly inspired by real-life events to write these two songs -- the memories of an uncle who had been in a WWII concentration camp and the sordid murder of a young girl who had been forced into prostitution, strangled by her pimp, with her body dumped into a river. In his adaptation of events into song, De Andre switched specificity and misery for universality and tragic beauty -- anger at the unfairness of life was transformed into a poignant sadness that would forever haunt anyone who listened to these songs. In the context of 1960s Italian music, De Andre's originality also stemmed from his influences, as these came mostly from literature rather than from music. Most of his songs, in fact, are direct heirs to the 19th century Realist and Naturalist French novels of Honore de Balzac, Emile Zola, and Guy de Maupassant. Indeed, in the best tradition of Giovanni Verga's short stories, at least half the protagonists of the songs in V.3 meet a tragic end. Even if based on literary models of centuries past, De Andre's songs do not sound rarefied: taking a cue from his idol Georges Brassens, he peppered his writing with an anarchic, anti-bourgeois perspective that fit perfectly with the countercultural movement of the late '60s. Even if De Andre went on to make arguably even better music, most Italians would always and immediately a to be continued...