The lullabies for children and adults by Brunori Sas – Patrizio Ruviglioni

This time Brunori Sas allows himself a few promotional interviews. He answers the phone, from his recording studio, only in what his press office calls “moments of time”. Two months ago he became the father of a little girl, Fiammetta, for the first time. Now he dedicates a reissue of his latest album to her, Chip! (2020), reinterpreted in a lullaby version. A genre that the British would call lullaby: the original pieces are played with elementary school flutes, small pianos, xylophones, bells, in general toy instruments. And the line between personal and public this time is thin. What are we talking about, about the record or how has your life changed?

“Strangely I feel relaxed,” he says. “For the first time I am asking my instinct to plan; I proceed in a natural way “. Habits change, he says. But the desire to joke and self-irony are the usual: “Everyone asks me two things: if I’m sleeping and if I’ve already written a piece for my daughter. To the first I answer yes, luckily. On the second no, I have performance anxiety at the thought of the song “. The example we both think about is Francesco De Gregori, who dedicated the piece in 1978 Sunshine to her twins, then just born.

And it is not a casual association: for ten years Brunori Sas – that is Dario Brunori, the “sas” of “limited partnership” is the legacy of a past disowned as an entrepreneur in the family business – is considered one of the last heirs of the traditional Italian songwriter. He comes from Calabria and started in 2009 with Volume 1, following the road of Rino Gaetano, his countryman. Then he partly moved on to Lucio Dalla and on De Gregori himself, but moving away from vintage, towards an indie-pop to the orchestral Belle and Sebastian and with stadium choruses. She has found a voice of her own, which does not take itself seriously and which has managed to speak to many weaknesses, common confessions, simple and lucid existentialism. Of the singer-songwriters of the zero years he is one of the few that has remained. A national-popular symbol, which however remains linked to independent music. The only one who has TV programs and platinum records in his curriculum, as happened to the album All is well at home (2017), and with a tour in the sports halls scheduled. Postponed for a long time, perhaps it will be possible next spring. “But as far as private life is concerned,” he admits, “I am very reserved”. We only know, for example, that the child’s mother is Simona Marrazzo, her historical partner and backing vocalist of the band.

So a celebration like Baby cip! it’s a kind of exception. He sighs: “I’ve been doing a lot lately. Once I was very irregular with my work, now for Fiammetta I have imposed rigid, ‘office’ hours. And discipline is good for creativity. But I think it’s in the very nature of people to change when they fall in love. I used to look at my friends and wonder how they could take pictures of their kids and post them on Facebook, rather than enjoy them ‘in private’. And now I’m dedicating a record to mine “. A record that comes out on vinyl and digitally, the proceeds of which will be donated to the neonatology department of the Cosenza hospital. “I didn’t want it to be a commercial operation, an act of personal vanity,” explains the singer-songwriter.

Of Baby cip! two aspects are striking: that these lullabies seem like auteur music boxes, however rich in care, instruments, harmonies; and that Brunori’s voice is absent. “Regarding the sounds at the base, there was a lot of work. I took care of the production, also because my head was obviously a bit elsewhere. It was my musicians, namely Mirko Onofrio, Stefano Amato, Dario Della Rossa and Massimo Palermo, who rearranged the songs. At first we relied on computers, then we recovered real toy tools, which we may have had at home. I myself have often included them in my songs ”. For words, however, the discourse is more complex. “I wanted the pieces to resemble bedtime stories, which I thought I was reading, without singing. But between the songs of Chip! just the text of The world is divided lent itself. So I let it be “.

And then the real star of the original album is death. It happens like this, for example, he simply inserts it among the “things of life”. Even without us think about how we are “only one in seven billion”, and the world continues to turn the same, with or without our paranoia. The single Beyond love instead he mentions the tragedies at sea, the migrants, the lack of reception. AND Those who will arrive, written with Dimartino, collects the thoughts of a child who begins to think about the disappearance of those around him. “The idea of Baby cip! was born after a friend of mine gave me a version lullaby of a Pearl Jam record. But it felt right to me precisely because the original album contains these themes. I wanted to make a complementary version of it, dedicated to a birth, ”says Brunori.

And certainly, also for this reason, his texts do not seem suitable for the little ones. “If anything it is that of The bullfighter costume, which is in All is well at home. Because it is full of good intentions, sincere and I hope not ecumenical. I know it was also read at school ”. There he sings: “I’ll never be cynical enough to stop believing
may the world be better than it is / But I won’t be that stupid either
to believe that the world can grow if I do not start from me “.

“In Chip! instead I am the child ”, adds Brunori. “Writing it, I looked for my inner child. Starting with a language as simple as possible, a bit like when I was a child I reflected on existential issues. I discovered that children have a particular relationship with death: mature and not very Western. They accept bereavement more easily than adults. Because over time we lose the ability to live in the present, while the little ones do not value the future and the past. As you grow up, you count the time left and the time that has elapsed. Think about missed opportunities. You know you are not immortal, but you behave as if you were ”.

Listening to Baby cip! it is therefore alienating, especially if you know its original counterpart, its melancholy, the stories it contains. I ask Brunori what these new arrangements are for, if he imagines an audience beyond his fondest fans. He stops me: “It is a gift that I give to my daughter, first of all. A souvenir that I leave you from these first days together, and that I wanted to treat myself. With love, which is the engine of these songs. But I would like it to be useful, to reach many, yes. In the last two months I have often found myself searching YouTube for songs to put Fiammetta to sleep. Who knows if someone, doing the same for their own children, might not come across mine “. By the way: did you hear the record Fiammetta? “Certain. She cried all the time ”.