Vespa Tunes XVII: Venezia - Istanbul, Franco Battiato, 1980

Earlier this week I went on an impromptu jaunt to stay with my pal Gillian in Venice. Arriving at Santa Lucia station is always magical, and almost exactly thirty years ago it was the site of a small cafeteria transaction which turned out to be one of the defining events of my adolescence.

As I took the vaporetto down the Grand Canal on a quietly crisp November evening I was reminded of Franco Battiato’s song Venezia - Istanbul. It’s a sort of stream of consciousness which begins with a comparison between Venice and Istanbul and meanders, as thoughts do.

The contradictions, hypocrisies, cynicisms, and incoherence of the twentieth century are fractured in the very essence of staccato modernity. It reminds me of Braque’s early collages, such as this one from 1914 in the Met in New York.

Baudelairean modernity fizzing in ancient canals. D’Annunzio would, I think, have approved.

Battiato offers glimpses of ideas of the last century every bit as fleeting and ungraspable as reflected lights trembling in inky waters moved by a water bus. Which all sounds very serious, but it’s also a great tune.

Translation and footnotes are all mine, it’s a fairly esoteric song and I’m probably missing elements. If anyone has anything to add please do in the comments!

Venezia mi ricorda istintivamente Istanbul

stessi palazzi addosso al mare

rossi tramonti che si perdono nel nulla.

D' Annunzio montò a cavallo con fanatismo futurista

quanta passione per gli aeroplani e per le bande legionarie

che scherzi gioca all'uomo la Natura.

Mi dia un pacchetto di Camel senza filtro e una minerva

e una cronaca alla radio dice che una punta attacca

verticalizzando l'area di rigore...

ragazzi non giocate troppo spesso accanto agli ospedali.

Venice reminds me instinctively of Istanbul

The same buildings right on the water

Red sunsets that fade to nothing.

D’Annunzio climbed on his horse with Futurist fanaticism

What passion for aeroplanes and for legions

What games Nature plays on man¹.

Give me a pack of filterless Camels and a minerva²

and a radio commentary says that an attack comes

pressing forward into the penalty area…

boys, don’t play [football] too often by hospitals.

Socrate parlava spesso delle gioie dell'Amore

e nel petto degli alunni si affacciava quasi il cuore

tanto che gli offrivano anche il corpo: fuochi di

ferragosto.

E gli anni dell'adolescenza pieni di battesimi e comunioni

in sacrestia: Ave Maria.

Socrates spoke often of the joys of Love

and the hearts of his pupils came forth

such that they even offered him their bodies: fireworks of Ferragosto.

And the years of adolescence full of baptisms and first communions

in the sacristy: Ave Maria.³

Un tempo si giocava con gli amici a carte e per le feste si

indossavano cravatte per questioni estetiche e sociali; le

donne si sceglievano un marito per corrispondenza...

L'Etica è una vittima incosciente della Storia: ieri ho

visto due (uomini) che si tenevano abbracciati in un

cinemino di periferia... e penso a come cambia in fretta la

Morale: un tempo si uccidevano i cristiani e poi questi

ultimi con la scusa delle streghe ammazzavano i pagani.

Ave Maria.

There was a time when we played cards with friends and at parties

we wore ties for aesthetic and social reasons;

women chose their husbands by correspondence…

Ethics are an unwitting victim of History: yesterday I

saw two (men)⁴ in an embrace in a cinema in the outskirts… and I think how quickly

Morals change: once Christians were killed and then they killed pagans using the

excuse of witches.

Ave Maria.

E perché il sol dell'avvenire splenda ancora sulla terra

facciamo un po' di largo con un'altra guerra.

And so that the “coming sun” may still shine upon the earth⁵

let’s make some space with another war.

1. D’Annunzio’s March on Fiume with the “bande legionarie” cited here was the precursor to Mussolini’s March on Rome. When Mussolini’s own fanaticism led to his rise to power rather than acknowledge D’Annunzio he had him exiled to Lake Garda where he lived his last years. In turn Mussolini’s downfall would see him establish the short-lived Nazi puppet state at Salò, not far from Gardone sul Garda where D’Annunzio’s lived out his last, debauched, years. What games, indeed, Nature plays on man.

2. Minerva was an Austrian brand of radio.

3. I assume an allusion to time spent as an altar boy.

4. Not sung by Battiato but written (in parentheses) in the lyrics which came with the original record.

5. In a letter of 1872 Garibaldi wrote to Celso Ceretti of his participation in the First International that the International Workingmen’s Association was the “sol d’avvenire”.