The Hot Autumn in song : 1

An earlier post spoke of the singer songwriter (and film-maker) Pietro Pietrangeli as one of the protest singers of the 1970s and certainly some of his song could be seen to have a direct link to Italy's so-called Hot Autumn (Autunno Caldo) and the wave of militant strikes in 1969. His Mio caro padrone domani ti sparo (My dear boss tomorrow I'm going to shoot you) might be seen as one of the symbolic songs of a militancy that was more radical than ever and could no longer be contained in traditionally revolutionary structures. The subject imagines different ways of physically eliminating his boss from making donkey's soap from his skin to tearing off his head and learning to play bowling with it.

Nanni Balestrini's book Vogliamo Tutto (and recently translated by Matt Holden for Telephone Publishing - later my review of the translation will appear elsewhere) was the ultimate literary work associated with this book. Yet what about popular song?  How did the Hot Autumn find its way there?

Nanni Balestrini, the author of Vogliamo Tutto, the literary work which symbolised Italy's Hot Autumn of 1969 and the revolt of the 'mass worker'

One example is the song of Rino Gaetano L'operaio della Fiat «La 1100» ((The worker of the Fiat 1100) in which a white collar worker at FIAT ready to enjoy his weekend finds his machine burned by some anonymous workers:

Gaetano also sung another song related more obliquely to the emigration of southern workers north and a sense of anarchic revolt in his Agapito Malteni, il ferroviere about an engine driver who started off as an obedient Catholic but then became tempted by emigration north and revolt against his lot in the South:

Gaetano was not the only one to talk about emigration from the south to the north and the destiny of the internal immigrant to become the 'mass worker' radicalising the revolt at FIAT.

Lucio Dalla in his 1973 album Il Giorno aveva cinque teste (The Day Had Five Heads) also sang of the fate of a family of southern immigrants travelling to Turin in desperate circumstances in his song Un'auto targata TO (A car with a Turin numberplate).

Dalla's song rather than a song of revolt is a description of the conditions that led to revolt. Lucio Dalla is not thought as a committed singer but here in this album (where he began his collaboration with Bolognese poet Roberto Roversi) the social theme comes to the forefront. Dalla also sings about work-related accidents and emigration in his song L'operaio Gerolamo (The worker Gerolamo):

A few songs are included in this documentary on the Hot Autumn which gives a good overall indication of the atmosphere of the period and some of the more directly political songs of the time. In many ways the ultimate song of workers autonomy and unrestrained revolt could be seen in a famous song by Francesco Guccini La Locomotiva (The Locomotive) which recounts the story of an anarchist engine driver who commandeered an engine at the end of the 19th century and deliberately intended to crash his engine as a symbol of protest against injustice. Not influenced by the Hot Autumn the song was a symbol of its period in which

La bomba proletaria illuminava l'aria
e la fiaccola dell'anarchia

(The proletarian bomb illuminates the air
and the flame of anarchy

Francesco Guccini was to write and perform the song which illuminated the revolt set off by the Hot Autumn- La Locomotiva

Of course, the political group most associated with the mass workers revolt at FIAT Potere Operaio used as their song an old Polish and then Russian revolutionary song the Varshavianka which was then transformed into Stato e Padroni as their hymn:

Ballad of the Mother of Stalin (a crib)

I am publishing this crib (not as yet a translation) of Pasolini's Ballad which was written between 1961 and 1962 as it seems an additional text in which one can observe the importance of Russia in the work of Pasolini. This ballad doesn't seem to have been commented on by Francesca Tuscano in her book on 'Russia in the poetry of Pier Paolo Pasolini' and brings forth a number of reflections. There does seem to be translation of this ballad published in a City Lights anthology of translations of  poems and other pieces by Pasolini's. Nonetheless here is a quick first crib of this important Pasolini poem.  

Ballad of the mother of Stalin.

"My son, I who was innocent,

Gave you a love of guilt.

From a dove was born a fox,

He who comes at night and ravages

The livestock of the poor.

In those centuries in which we’ve been servants,

Innocence render parents

More children than their children: and their masters

Love them because they are so green.

The innocence of servants is not history!

My son, I who was meek,

Gave you a love of rancour.

From the little star was born the sun  

Which burns the enemy lands

Of poor labouring folk.

Meekness in us servants is fear:

We look only for the respect

Of the boss, so that the first

Christian virtue in our nature

Is to allow ourselves be offended and oppressed.

My son, I was who humble

Gave you the love of power.

From the onion was born the honey

Which tempts fledgling sons

The last born to our wretchedness.

The humility of us servants is respect

For the will of the owner:

All that which seemed extraordinary to him

To he who possesses, alone, in his breast

A naked sub proletarian’s heart.

My son, I who was honest

Gave you a love for treachery.

From the cloud was born the wind

Which- invisible - assails the forest

Bringing death and unraveling.

Honesty, for servants, is a struggle

With oneself, so as not to die on the gallows.

An award for their good conduct  

Is the blessing from a corrupt hand

In the celestial haze of the thurible.

My son, I who was life alone

Gave you a love for death.

That fate from pre-history

Upturning history fulfilled

Borne from the rage of insurgent masses.

Because the raw life of us slaves

Is a force which in itself is not dominant:

Source of unpredictable destinies

You sucked in from my breast,

The milk of heroisms and assassinations.

My son, how many women in the world

Still bear sons like you,

in Asia, in Europe, in Africa, wherever there is

a land of slaves, of bandits and thieves,

that dream of some thing deep inside themselves.

Mothers in which innocence is a guilt,

Meekness rancour, power humility,

honesty treachery: and whose life gives

a thirst for death: one needs to be conscious of this,

conscience or mercy are not enough."