Marco Morandi: “I sing Rino Gaetano because he remains the oddest of all”

He was and remains the most odd among the Italian songwriters, the unlocatable, the Martian, the transversal that belonged to everyone and nobody. He did not completely belong to his time and was partially already the son of today, so much so that on the night of the electoral victory they sang “A mano a mano” to the general staff of Giorgia Meloni, irritating Rino Gaetano’s sister for the use ” politician ”of the song. (If the Gaber award on “Destra-Sinistra” were finally accepted, certain controversies about a pop song would be considered short-sighted, but Mr. G had too many diopters).

Artistic bearer of Rino Gaetano and his interpreter with affectionate tenacity, Marco Morandi celebrated the birthday of the author of “Gianna” on 29 October by releasing the song “Centonove” ten years after his last single. Marco was seven years old in 1981, the year in which, towards the dawn of June 2, Rino’s biological life ended against a plane tree in Via Nomentana to continue in the memory of those who hope, as in the song “E io ci sto”, which taking some bus 109 in the morning will lead you sooner or later to a “Revolution” (everyone deludes himself with his own, big or small or who knows).

Did you meet Rino Gaetano?

They tell me yes, once he came to see my father Gianni. Unfortunately I don’t remember it, I was only four or five years old, but maybe unconsciously that meeting planted a seed inside me.

Why does he keep singing it?

For the power and strength of his songs. For more than ten years, as a parallel activity to mine, I have been carrying around his songs, finding harmony even in those who were born twenty years after his death. He was a voice out of the chorus, who dealt with themes that were not at all light with irony and mockery, but also expressed great tenderness.

In the clip of “Centonove” he gathered the friends of Rino Gaetano and his girlfriend Amelia, with whom he was supposed to get married in 1981.

I imagined he was telling her what the suddenly broken life did not allow him to declare: that the “revolution” the 109 bus led was love for her. I was inspired by two songs by Rino: “And I am there” and “Cerco”. When I played the piece to Amelia, who is now a retired lady, we were both moved. Friends said that Rino had been kidnapped by his sweetness. It is true: time passes but this woman has never taken away grace.

“You know that the older you get, the more distant memories emerge,” says Battiato.

Only through remembrance are we immortal. Rino Gaetano’s message has been so up to now because he deserved it, and in the meantime it is therapeutic for me to sing it. “Centonove” was born after an evening that I had spent talking about him with the songwriter Piji. Left alone in the study, sleep was catching me near the piano and in that half-sleep the music came and I wrote the words. The next morning Piji told me that he too had composed a text: we compared them and they merged perfectly. I interpreted it as a magic of Rino. And it happened in via Rino Gaetano.

That is to say?

I had the street where I live named after him, in Fonte Nuova in the province of Rome. When I came to live there he did not have a name, so in the request to the Municipality I suggested that they call it via Rino Gaetano. The proposal was accepted almost twenty years ago.

You have announced a tour with “twenty songs to take to a desert island” for the next few months. What will you propose?

The twenty songs that I consider fundamental for my life. Songs are time machines on which the most important memories of our soul travel. For me there are Battiato, Dalla, Guccini, Fossati, but I am convinced that my choices will often coincide with those of those who will come to hear me in theaters.

Any title?

Dalla’s “La sera dei miracoli”, Guccini’s “Song of usual questions”, which is a lesser-known masterpiece, and Fossati’s “The construction of a love”.

Battiato?

“The Master’s Voice” was my key record. My father had directed me to a classical musical training: from the time I was five to fifteen I took violin lessons. I listened to Beethoven, Mozart, but when I discovered Battiato I looked out over other musical genres. He was my first love of pop music.

Then she met him personally.

It was clear to me as soon as I met him that there was no difference between the artist and the man: his songs represented him with perfect coherence. It was as I expected it to be.

And Dalla?

He was curious about everything like a child, an enthusiast of life. My memory is delivered to his Roman house in Trastevere, fifty meters from my mother’s. It was there that he wrote “The evening of miracles”.

Are you surprised that “A mano a mano” was sung by the Brothers of Italy?

Just as it is not possible to assign a music label to Rino, so he cannot be given a policy. He did not upset me that they sang “A mano a mano” nor does it seem to me that it is a serious matter, even if the songs must be kept away from politics in case they risk becoming an ideological flag.

But does line 109 exist?

Every now and then someone writes to me that he took it. But I don’t know exactly which road to take.