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10 BTExM (Best Tunes Ever x Me)

#5 - LA BALILLA (Enzo Jannacci)

 

La Balilla is a song with few chords (two, both major chords), a progression used in many other popular music, not only Italian.

 

Therefore, saying that La Balilla was “written” by “Italo Corrias called El Barberin, son of a Sardinian and a Pugliese” is half-truth, since the original thing is perhaps the lyrics. And the surname and lineage of the parents make belonging to the “Milanese popular” music genre (although universally accepted) a somewhat ironic question.

 

The name “Balilla” was already widely used: it was the name of two submarines of the Royal Navy (in 1915 and then 1927) and its origin was the (supposed) Genoese patriot Giovan Battista Perasso (1735-1781) who at only 11 years old - the conditional is a must in these things - acted as a detonator of the popular revolts against the hated Austro-Piedmontese.

 

Then, in the year in which the song appeared - 1932 - on April 12 of that year the Piedmontese Fiat had launched the 508, called “Balilla”: a “utilitarian” car that however it would cost a farmer something like 208 months of salary and therefore was more of an “ut-elitist” toy than a toy for the masses.

 

All of this happened in the shadow of a greater Mussolinian creation, the “Opera nazionale Balilla per l'assistenza e per l'educazione fisica e morale della gioventù”. Disguised as a “legal entity”, similarly to certain (privatized) NGOs today, it was the armed wing of the winning branch’s propaganda, in this case specialized in the regazzini or, better said, “in the education of tomorrow’s fascists”. For this purpose divided into: “children of the she-wolf” (6-8 years), “balilla” (8-14) and “avanguardisti” (14-18).

 

With this it was demonstrated that political opinion is the only thing that the very rich cannot afford (it is no coincidence that Fiat will therefore go to Togliattigrad to manufacture cars) and perhaps also that Italo Corrias was part of the vanguard of those paid singers of creeping propaganda that today we call “viral”.

 

The original text develops the concept of “possession envy” so popular today. If you read it this way, it is a work worthy of Edward Bernays (the neglected grandson of Sigmund Freud, MA the father of propaganda or "public relations".)

 

It tells of a Milanese worker who, thanks to his daily routine, "troeuvi tanti bigliett de milla" (buys so many thousand-lire notes) to the point of "getting convinced" to buy the coveted status symbol ("Me vegnuu in ment de cumprà la Balilla.") And from there, the envy of the entire neighborhood is unleashed.

 

Enzo Jannacci did not invent the chords nor was he content to limit the song to a critic to envy, even if jokingly told as Corrias does. He changes the text by attributing the initial idea (literally: being devoured by envy) to a long list of... family members.

 

Here Dr. Enzo (he was a hi-quality surgeon, in 'real' life) performs a triple twist somersault and dives into the heart of the human soul: that loving “heart of darkness” that in Milan and its surroundings we say: brotherly love, knife-y love: amur de fradej amur de curtej (curtej means knives).

 

Once you accept the concept that even and above all family members can be hungry beasts, from then on you just have to think of the Balilla as a “Grande bouffe” in a 'extended family' version: the “fradej” (brothers) who “also ate my budej” (inner tubes), “my little kitchen that’s on Via Larga/She also ate my license plate”, “My aunt from Gorgonzöula/She made cassoeula with my tires” [a typical dish], “My grandfather who has angina/He got drunk with gasoline.”

 

The pinnacle of Jannacci's singing is the variation on "la Balìla, la Balìla, la Balìla" (a minute into the piece, not even three minutes in total) which is a skittering of intonation and gives you the idea (the voice becomes crazy for a few seconds) of the disgusting world, to then slide towards Primo Carnera (the boxer) "who pulls from the right" and who "with a tumbùn [punch] me s-ciéppa i balester."

 

Totally delirious, Jannacci's version, starting from when he explains that he works "from twelve to noon" (modifying the original "from 6 to 12") and already there you understand that you are in slippery territory, and you don't know if he is making fun of you and not working at all or doing one of those (few, strange, well-paid) jobs that - especially at the time - could be done between midnight and noon.

 

If I wanted to sum up this song, I would say that it takes me back to the Milan with the houses torn apart by the "Allied" (well) bombs that I saw as a child. That reminds me that life is hard, even from the closest neighbors. Family members. And maybe even the neighbors. Like "el todesch di slifen e slofen" who "is still there pissing in the trunk" and the "neighbor on the railing" who "even digested the door". Needless to say, the song ends with "I won't buy a car no more", in full off-the-grid 20twenties' style.