Non Al Denaro, Non All'Amore, Ne Al Cielo

Yet another of the brilliant concept albums Fabrizio De Andr? released in the early '70s, Non Al Denaro, Non All'amore N? Al Cielo("Nor Gold, Nor Love, Nor Heaven") is based on Edgar Lee Masters' famous collection of poems Spoon River Anthology. This was the first time De Andr? adapted or translated material from a culture other than Italian or French, and he went about it in a much looser way. Masters' book consisted of fictional epitaphs delivered by the dead themselves, succinctly summarizing their hollow lives, effectively creating an unscathing collective fresco of the American small town and small-minded society. Together with poet Giuseppe Bentivoglio, De Andr? selected only nine of a total of 244 poems by Masters, discarded the original free form for rhyme and, fundamentally, most often chose to thoroughly rewrite the texts instead of relying on literal translation. De Andr?'s main concern was how to turn a quintessential (and by then, outdated) American setting into a universal small town. All the specific references to American history and society that abound in Masters' work (particularly those dealing with the consequences of the Civil War) are gone, replaced by a close focus on those themes and characters that would have felt perfectly at home in any of De Andr?'s own songs: a cast of outsiders and born losers trapped in a provincial bourgeoisie environment that stifles its dreamers through pettiness, hypocrisy, and envy.... Read More...