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“Chronicles of a Crooked Time” is the new album by Galons. Eleven tracks that tell, from the author’s point of view, some significant events of recent years, starting from the great events that have influenced society up to intimate personal reflections. The album comes five years after the last work “Incontinent adrift”. Strongly influenced by the readings of Raymond Carver, Mikhail Bulgakov and Cormac McCarthy, Galons publishes a mature record that with a diaristic and journalistic approach retraces a complex and “crooked” time, like that of the most recent history, alternating it with small autobiographical stories to draw a real map of human relationships. Events such as the collapse of the Morandi bridge, the tragedy in the Sicilian channel, the lockdown and rampant denialism overlap with the life stories of an ordinary man, with his fears and feelings, becoming an opportunity to tell, by telling himself, the world from a different perspective.
Emanuele, when were the “Chronicles of a crooked time” born and when did you realize that we are all children and victims of a crooked time?
It was born in a particular moment and the title was born first then came the songs that refer to the tragedies in the Strait of Sicily and the Morandi Bridge and then my stories; I opened up a lot in this concept which revolves around a collective chronicle and small personal chronicles of mine.
“The stories of passers-by are better than a fresco”: Eduardo used to say that two people on a bench are already a script. How do you approach writing and how do you mediate between the narrative and your personal?
I love writing and storytelling. I am a teacher who loves prose storytelling and when I write a song there are all my experiences as a teacher. The verse you quoted thinking about my Roman period and is set on a tram that I often took, meeting and observing grotesque characters that came back to me. It’s a little daily news.
Are you the tram man?
I could be. Although the song is about a man who lives on the tram waiting for a woman for twenty years.
Assuming that in the lockdown we managed to preserve the mind, nerves and muscles, are we back to haste or are we still thinking about the house above the trees? Why also in “In the middle of the rush” you talk about people who are not looking for what matters… the picture is not positive?
I have an almost nihilistic attitude. Nothing will change. We are engulfed in a fairly fast-paced world engulfed by technology and the digital world. That is a hope but the problem is that we no longer value historical memory. The time of the pandemic should be studied and remembered but we have little memory and just talking about it becomes a nuisance. We are back to before and the fear is that we will remember little.
We care about a story only if we know how to age it: what relationship do you have with memories? Are you selective or do you archive everything?
I learned to be selective. We tend more to think about the memory than to live an experience. Historical memory is also personal.
The Mare Magnum is in any case a closed sea: do you think it is possible to rediscover some of the possibilities that we have let drift?
I think so even if here I’m talking about a personal story that is archived and without possibility. But by expanding the theme, the possibility can be created with work and determination.
Is the concept of return of “You must not be afraid of anything” that of nostos? Also, have you thought about the “must” in the title? Wouldn’t eliminating him have seemed sweeter to come back since it would have been a choice? Furthermore, “On the upper floors of a building” there are bridges that do not allow return to a departure.
I was inspired by the novel “The Road” by Corman McCarthy: the “devi” is from a father who addresses his son, they are in a post-apocalyptic scenario and they wander around looking for traces of a building. This record revolves around the concept of home, also understood as an interior space. In all songs there is a house.
Is the time we don’t share but tell ourselves that of this very social and unreal era?
Above all. “In Mezzo alla Fretta” and “The ruins of Pompeii” are sister songs. Let’s take an unshared journey, sometimes it’s not a choice but life that doesn’t allow us. Society does not meet social relations. From work one must earn not money but free time.
What is Gino’s bar denial? Between bars, Gino and barbera reminds me a lot of Gaberian ballads.
He’s a friend, when we drank the evening ended in the village fountain. It is the contrast between a solid figure and a discussion of conspiracy theories and the bar is central because it bears witness to things that really happened. What happens to me I try to put it in writing right away.
Is there a place where one is reconciled with life?
For me it was but it’s not physical, it’s where I made peace with my father, who I never knew. The place is where you make peace with personal stories, it’s a long journey made up of acceptance of one’s existence. Sometimes even years have to go by.
In the end can we say that now you see the spring that has arrived?
Summer has already arrived, feel that heat! I work with kids who are between 11 and 14 and leave a little hope. Adults always find a way to tell today’s generations in a pejorative way. I say that spring will be theirs and I am very positive.
What will happen in the coming weeks?
In July I start with the promotional tour with an acoustic set, guitar and violin, then there will be some live shows with the band. We closed a few dates. For autumn, I’m thinking of clubs.
Source-tg24.sky.it