Piccola Città - Francesco Guccini

Piccola città, bastardo posto

Appena nato ti compresi o fu il fato che in tre mesi mi spinse via

Piccola città, io ti conosco

Nebbia e fumo non so darvi il profumo del ricordo che cambia in meglio

Ma sono qui nei pensieri le strade di ieri e tornano

Visi e dolori e stagioni, amori e mattoni che parlano…

Piccola città, io poi rividi

Le tue pietre sconosciute, le tue case diroccate da guerra antica

Mia nemica strana, sei lontana

Coi peccati, fra macerie e fra giochi consumati dentro al Florida

Cento finestre, un cortile, le voci, le liti e la miseria

Io, la montagna nel cuore, scoprivo l’odore del dopoguerra…

Piccola città, vetrate viola

Primi giorni della scuola, la parola ha il mesto odore di religione

Vecchie suore nere, che con fede

In quelle sere avete dato a noi il senso di peccato e di espiazione

Gli occhi guardavano voi, ma sognavan gli eroi, le armi e la bilia

Correva la fantasia verso la prateria, fra la via Emilia e il West…

Sciocca adolescenza, falsa e stupida innocenza

Continenza, vuoto mito americano di terza mano

Pubertà infelice, spesso urlata a mezza voce

A toni acuti, casti affetti denigrati, cercati invano

Se penso a un giorno o a un momento ritrovo soltanto malinconia

E tutto un incubo scuro, un periodo di buio gettato via…

Piccola città, vecchia bambina

Che mi fu tanto fedele, a cui fui tanto fedele tre lunghi mesi

Angoli di strada, testimoni degli erotici miei sogni

Frustrazioni e amori a vuoto mai compresi

Dove sei ora, che fai, neghi ancora o ti dai sabato sera?

Quelle di adesso disprezzi o invidi e singhiozzi se passano davanti a te?

Piccola città, vecchi cortili

Sogni e dei primaverili, rime e fedi giovanili, bimbe ora vecchie

Piango e non rimpiango la tua polvere, il tuo fango, le tue vite

Le tue pietre, l’oro e il marmo, le catapecchie

Così diversa sei adesso, io son sempre lo stesso, sempre diverso

Cerco le notti ed il fiasco, se muoio rinasco, finché non finirà…

Small town, bastard place

As soon as I was born I understood you or it was fate that pushed me away in three months

Small town, I know you

Fog and smoke I can't give you the scent of the memory that changes for the better

But the streets of yesterday are here in my thoughts and they return

Faces and pains and seasons, loves and bricks that speak ...

Small town, I then saw again

Your unknown stones, your dilapidated houses from ancient war

My strange enemy, you are far away

With sins, among rubble and between games consumed in Florida

A hundred windows, a courtyard, rumors, quarrels and misery

I, the mountain in my heart, discovered the smell of the post-war period ...

Small town, purple stained glass

Early days of school, the word has the sad smell of religion

Old black nuns, who with faith

In those evenings you gave us the sense of sin and atonement

The eyes looked at you, but they dreamed of the heroes, the weapons and the marble

The imagination ran towards the prairie, between the Via Emilia and the West ...

Foolish adolescence, false and stupid innocence

Continence, empty third-hand American myth

Unhappy puberty, often screamed in a low voice

In acute tones, chaste affections denigrated, sought in vain

If I think of a day or a moment I find only melancholy

It is all a dark nightmare, a period of darkness thrown away ...

Small town, old child

Who was so faithful to me, to whom I was so faithful for three long months

Street corners, witnesses of my erotic dreams

Frustrations and empty loves never understood

Where are you now, what are you doing, do you still deny or give yourself on Saturday night?

Those of now you despise or envy and sobs if they pass in front of you?

Small town, old courtyards

Spring dreams and springtime rhymes and youthful faiths, little girls now old

I cry and do not regret your dust, your mud, your lives

Your stones, the gold and the marble, the hovels

So different you are now, I'm always the same, always different

I look for the nights and the fiasco, if I die I will be reborn, until it ends ...