CANZONI DAL RICORDO DI UN FESTIVAL LIBERO
ovvero "abbiamo suonato le nostre canzoni e abbiamo sentito il cielo di Londra riposarsi nelle nostre mani"
"Torre di controllo a Maggiore Tom... Torre di controllo a Maggiore Tom"...
con queste celeberrime parole ci connettiamo all'universo del secondo disco del giovane David Bowie. Il ragazzo ci ha provato in tanti modi... ha fatto il mimo, il pittore, l'imbianchino, il mod impasticcato... il giorno prima lo vediamo che rovista tra la spazzatura con Marc Bolan alla ricerca di vestiti scartati dai negozi più "in" di Londra, lo sentiamo imitare uno gnomo che ride, il giorno dopo scrive una ballata spaziale su un astronauta perso tra le stelle (o su un ragazzo in overdose?), si fa fotografare come fosse un antieroe appena uscito da "Arancia Meccanica" o "2001 Odissea nello Spazio" e lavora su nuove e vecchie sonorità con Tony Visconti e un giovanissimo Rick Wakeman. Le atmosfere fantascientifiche che tanto influenzeranno i futuri successi in "Space Oddity" non sono ancora presenti, ma la voce di Bowie si staglia inconfondibile e unica nel panorama inglese del 1969, mentre fa strani versi nella velocissima e impazzita "Unwashed And Somewhat Slightly Dazed" o mentre ridacchia in "(Don't Sit Down)". L'altro elemento assolutamente originale che connota questo giovane riccioluto vestito un po' strano è la capacità di unire un nuovo country-folk a testi diversi, originali, critici, disillusi, ironici, descrittivi e di essere romantico e malinconico come un ragazzo qualunque, senza alcuna pretesa, come nell'acustica "Letter To Hermione".
E se crediamo che con le prime quattro tracce abbiamo già sentito tutto ci sbagliamo alla grande, perché all'improvviso dal cilindro David estrae una critica alla società divagante e poetica come nei nove minuti e mezzo di "Cygnet Committee"... ma questo cilindro non ha fondo!: c'è spazio pure per l'orchestra e l'energia dell'immensa "Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud", forse una delle più belle ballate scritte dal futuro Ziggy Stardust. Sulla stessa onda della di follia folk già ascoltata nella seconda traccia ascoltiamo il divertente addio a "Janine", seguita dagli echi intimistici di "An Occasional Dream". L'eccezionale espressività di questo "esordiente" si rivela ancora in "God Knows I'm Good": solo Bowie ci può raccontare in un modo del tutto particolare la storia di una signora che viene "sgamata" a taccheggiare al supermercato!
Questo sfolgorante e coloratissimo patchwork di immagini e suggestioni country e sinfoniche si chiude con "Memory Of A Free Festival": è il racconto della fine delle ideologie hippy, è la celebrazione disillusa dell'ultima festa dell'estate, dove l'organo saluta le dolci visioni di Bowie e il sole cala per sempre posando i suoi vibranti raggi su un affresco dove Peter Pan e Capitan Uncino si inseguono spensierati, dove parliamo con i Venusiani, dove senza catene attraversiamo la terra di Dio mentre il cielo di Londra riposa nelle nostre mani...
La torre di controllo si appresta a lanciare nell'etere le ballate (e la fama) di un ragazzo che con una lunga vestaglia floreale e i capelli da hobbit sale sul palco di un Festival Libero per pitturare con i suoni pastello della dodici corde i sogni, le immagini e i personaggi scaturiti dalla sua fantasia...a noi non resta altro che abbandorci a queste suonabilissime ispirazioni e alla fresca semplicità del presente...
da "Cygnet Committee"
"È passato tanto tempo
e c'è così poco di nuovo
E quando l'alba mi inonda
Di bagliori
I miei amici parlano
Di gloria, sogni mai raccontati, dove tutto è Dio e Dio è solo una parola"
(traduzione tratta da www.velvetgoldmine.it)
Elenco tracce testi samples e video
01 Space Oddity (05:16)
Ground control to Major Tom
Ground control to Major Tom
Take your protein pills and put your helmet on
Ground control to Major Tom
(10, 9, 8, 7)
Commencing countdown, engines on
(6, 5, 4, 3)
Check ignition, and may God's love be with you
(2, 1, liftoff)
This is ground control to Major Tom,
You've really made the grade
And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear
Now it's time to leave the capsule if you dare
This is Major Tom to ground control
I'm stepping through the door
And I'm floating in the most peculiar way
And the stars look very different today
For here am I sitting in a tin can
Far above the world
Planet Earth is blue, and there's nothing I can do
Though I'm past 100,000 miles
I'm feeling very still
And I think my spaceship knows which way to go
Tell my wife I love her very much, she knows
Ground control to Major Tom,
Your circuit's dead, there's something wrong
Can you hear me Major Tom?
Can you hear me Major Tom?
Can you hear me Major Tom?
Can you...
Here am I floating in my tin can
Far above the moon
Planet Earth is blue, and there's nothing I can do....
02 Unwashed and Somewhat Slightly Dazed (06:12)
Spy, spy, pretty girl
I see you see me through your window
Don't turn your nose up
Well, you can if you need to, you won't be the first or last
It must strain you to look down so far from your father's house
And I know what a louse like me in his house could do for you
I'm the Cream
Of the Great Utopia Dream
And you're the gleam
In the depths of your banker's spleen
I'm a phallus in pigtails
And there's blood on my nose
And my tissue is rotting
Where the rats chew my bones
And my eye sockets empty
See nothing but pain
I keep having this brainstorm
About twelve times a day
So now, you could spend the morning walking with me, quite amazed
As I'm Unwashed and Somewhat Slightly Dazed
I got eyes in my backside
That see electric tomatoes
On credit card rye bread
There are children in washrooms
Holding hands with a queen
And my heads full of murders
Where only killers scream
So now you ould spend the morning talking with me quite amazed
Look out, I'm raving mad and Somewhat Slightly Dazed
Now you run from your window
To the porcelain bowl
And you're sick from your ears
To the red parquet floor
And the Braque on the wall
Slides down your front
And eats through your belly
It's very catchhing
So now, you should spend the mornings lying to your father quite amazed
About the strange Unwashed and Happily Slightly Dazed.
04 Letter to Hermione (02:36)
The hand that wrote this letter
Sweeps the pillow clean
So rest your head and read a treasured dream
I care for no one else but you
I tear my soul to cease the pain
I think maybe you feel the same
What can we do?
I'm not quite sure what we're supposed to do
So I've been writing just for you
They say your life is going very well
They say you sparkle like a different girl
But something tells me that you hide
When all the world is warm and tired
You cry a little in the dark
Well so do I
I'm not quite sure what you're supposed to say
But I can see it's not okay
He makes you laugh
He brings you out in style
He treats you well
And makes you up real fine
And when he's strong
He's strong for you
And when you kiss
It's something new
But did you ever call my name
Just by mistake?
I'm not quite sure what I'm supposed to do
So I'll just write some love to you
05 Cygnet Committee (09:36)
I bless you madly,
sadly as I tie my shoes
I love you badly,
Just in time, at times, I guess
Because of you I need to rest
Because it's you
that sets the test
So much has gone
and little is new
And as the sparrow sings
Dawn chorus for
Someone else to hear
The Thinker sits alone growing older
And so bitter
"I gave Them life
I gave Them all
They drained my very soul
...dry
I crushed my heart
to ease Their pains
No thought for me remains there
Nothing can They spare
What of me?
Who praised Their efforts
to be free?
Words of strength and care
and sympathy
I opened doors
that would have blocked Their way
I braved Their cause to guide,
for little pay
I ravaged at my finance just for Those
Those whose claims were steeped in peace, tranquility
Those who said a new world, new ways ever free
Those whose promises stretched in hope and grace for me"
I bless you madly,
sadly as I tie my shoes
I love you badly, just in time,
at times, I guess
Because of you I need to rest, oh yes
Because it's you
that sets the test
So much has gone
and little is new
And as the sunrise stream
Flickers on me,
My friends talk
Of glory, untold dream, where all is God and God is just a word
"We had a friend, a talking man
Who spoke of many powers that he had
Not of the best of men, but Ours
We used him
We let him use his powers
We let him fill Our needs
Now We are strong
And the road is coming to its end
Now the damned have no time to make amends
No purse of token fortune stands in Our way
The silent guns of love
will blast the sky
We broke the ruptured structure built of age
Our weapons were the tongues of crying rage
Where money stood
We planted seeds of rebirth
And stabbed the backs of fathers
Sons of dirt
Infiltrated business cesspools
Hating through Our sleeves
Yea, and We slit the Catholic throat
Stoned the poor
on slogans such as
'Wish You Could Hear'
'Love Is All We Need'
'Kick Out The Jams'
'Kick Out Your Mother'
'Cut Up Your Friend'
'Screw Up Your Brother or He'll Get You In the End'
And We Know the Flag of Love is from Above
And We Can Force You to Be Free
And We Can Force You to Believe"
And I close my eyes and tighten up my brain
For I once read a book in which the lovers were slain
For they knew not the words of the Free States' refrain
It said:
"I believe in the Power of Good
I Believe in the State of Love
I Will Fight For the Right to be Right
I Will Kill for the Good of the Fight for the Right to be Right"
And I open my eyes to look around
And I see a child laid slain
on the ground
As a love machine lumbers through desolation rows
Ploughing down man, woman, listening to its command
But not hearing anymore
Not hearing anymore
Just the shrieks from the old rich
And I Want to Believe
In the madness that calls 'Now'
And I want to Believe
That a light's shining through
Somehow
And I Want to Believe
And You Want to Believe
And We Want to Believe
And We Want to Live
Oh, We Want to Live
We Want to Live
I want to live
06 Janine (03:25)
Oh my love, Janine
I'm helpless for your smile
Like a Polish wanderer
I travel ever onwards to your land
And were it not just for the jewels, I'd close your hand
Your strange demand
To 'collocate' my mind
Scares me into gloom
You're too intense
I'll have to keep you in your place
I've no defence
I've got to keep my veil on my face
Janine, Janine, you'd like to know me well
But I've got things inside my head
That even I can't face
Janine, Janine, you'd like to crash my walls
But if you take an axe to me
You'll kill another man
Not me at all
You're fey, Janine
A tripper to the last
But if I catch you standing on my toes
I'll have a right to shout you down
For you're a lazy stream
In which my thoughts would drown
So stay, Janine
And we can glide along
I've caught your wings for laughs
I'm not obliged to read you statements of the year
So take your glasses off
And don't act so sincere
Janine, Janine, you'd like to know me well
But I've got things inside my head
That even I can't face
Janine, Janine, you'd like to crash my walls
But if you take an axe to me
You'll kill another man
Not me at all
10 Memory of a Free Festival (07:11)
The children of the summer's end gathered in the dampened grass
We played our songs and felt the London sky
resting on our hands -- it was God's land
It was ragged and naive -- it was Heaven
Touch, we touched the very soul
of holding each and every life
We claimed the very source of joy ran through
It didn't, but it seemed that way
I kissed a lot of people that day
Oh, to capture just one drop of all the ecstasy
that swept that afternoon
To paint that love upon a white balloon
And fly it from the toppest top of all the tops that man has pushed
beyond his brain
Satori must be something just the same
We scanned the skies with rainbow eyes and saw machines
of every shape and size
We talked with tall Venusians passing through
And Peter tried to climb aboard but the Captain shook his head
and away they soared,
Climbing through the ivory vibrant cloud
Someone passed some bliss among the crowd
and we walked back to the road, unchained
The Sun Machine is Coming Down, and We're Gonna Have a Party...
Carico i commenti... con calma