Releasing a song with explicit erotic references in 1977 was a real mad undertaking. Do it by revealing it in the title, with a text that in no uncertain terms exalts the act ofonanism (aka masturbation)it is something unique. On the contrary: an outstanding feat, that the exceptional enterprise, ultimately, is being normal. And what’s more than normal than auto-eroticism? He tells us about it and sings it to us Lucio Dallawho would have celebrated his 80th birthday just yesterday, in a song that sets the record straight from the start: Desperate Erotic Stomp.
Let’s start right from the title, which in itself would be enough to summarize the whole song and also this analysis article. Desperate: Lucio Dalla, at the end of a turbulent sentimental relationship, tells us about a man who wanders the streets of Bologna, his Bologna. Erotic: the entire passage is permeated by the hormones of this man who, once that relationship is over, hears nature calling. Stomp: a very precise musical characterization deriving from the immense cauldron of jazz music, characterized by an upbeat rhythm and a lilting melody.
In short, Dalla had not yet begun to sing and had already told us everything. But the song is spectacular, and therefore we really don’t want to stop at the title.
The story of Desperate Erotic Stomp
From a harmonic point of view, the song is disarmingly simple: just two chords, an interval of a fifth, which repeat from beginning to end. Everything else makes the song: the dynamics, the arrangement, the melody and above all the text. Lucio Dalla tells us about the encounters of a man who, after the end of a relationship, goes around Bologna meeting the most absurd characters: a whore (but not just any one, an optimist and leftist, I don’t know if you know), a German tourist who is lost in the center and above all the thoughts of the protagonist, who get lost and find each other during the short walk. This ends with the return home, where the man decides to masturbate on the sofa.
The tour around Bologna could somehow be seen as the hero’s journeybut without the drama typical of the epic genre. The protagonist of the song is desperate, but not exasperated. He experiences the end of the sentimental relationship with a sort of ironic acceptance and, rather than reconquering the woman in a romantic way, he is concerned with giving vent to her instincts. A poetic song about masturbation. It is precisely for this, but also for much more, that Lucio Dalla is considered a genius.
The meaning of the text
They saw you drinking from a fountain
That wasn’t me
They saw you undressed in the morning
Biricchina biricco
With an intimate musical incipit, Dalla gives us the false impression that we are about to hear a sad and sentimental song. She immediately establishes the dramatic tone, before it all fades as the word is pronounced “he laughed“. From that point on the piece becomes light-hearted and cadenced, with the entrance of the acoustic guitar outlining the beat and, from the next verse, the rhythm section. The text introduces us to the thoughts of the protagonist, who has learned of the betrayal of his beloved, or perhaps of a new relationship with his ex-girlfriend.
While you didn’t undress with me
Not even at night
And they were a beating, God, what a beating
They saw you lift your skirt
The petticoat up to the fur, how blackThen you told me “Poor thing
Give your sex to the toilet”
You left with your friend
That tall, big cunt
Going into details, the man also tells us about intimacy issues of the couple, until he discovers that the woman gives (goes) quietly to other men, before leaving him alone and going away with a friend of hers (tall and big pussy). It is in this verse that the drums enter, as if to underline the man’s mood of growing anger. However, it is not a destructive anger, on the contrary, it is more a desire to send everything and everyone to hell.
Both of them doing something important
Unique and great
I always stay at home, I go out very little
I just think and I’m in my underwear
The differences between the two are also highlighted: she is ambitious, with the desire to live life, he is sedentary and habitual.
I think of disappointments, of great undertakings
To a Thai
But the exceptional feat, trust me
It’s being normal
However, he too thinks of great enterprises, even if only in his head. After all, the exceptional enterprise is not succeeding in exceptional enterprises. Giving us one of the most profound and simple truths ever, Lucio Dalla reminds us that the exceptional feat is being normal: accepting yourself without necessarily having to aspire to great results to show others what you are not.
So normally
I quit after a week
It wasn’t that cold, and normally
I met a whore
Apart from the hair, the dress
The fur and the boot
He had some serious problems too
And he didn’t think badly
I don’t know if you know
An optimistic, leftist whore
We did nothing
But I was left alone
Just like a moron
Reconnecting to the concept of “normality” of the previous verse, the man informs us that a week after leaving her, he decides to go out and wander around the city. Here he meets a prostitute with obvious problems, not only of an aesthetic nature, who nonetheless “didn’t think badly”. He describes her to us as a typical “optimistic and leftist whore”, with whom, however, he does not have any relationship. We imagine him, after the end of his relationship, chatting about the top systems with an optimistic prostitute, in contrast to the disappointed state of mind of the man, who however he is more interested in her thoughts than in her paid services.
Turning a little more I met
One who was lost
I told him in the center of Bologna
Not a single child is lost
He looks at me with a slightly upset face
And he tells me “I’m from Berlin”
In his wanderings alone the protagonist meets another bizarre character: a man who is lost in the center of Bologna. The condition expressed by Dalla is quite interesting: if you walk alone through the city, in a certain mood, you notice the most absurd characters. In this case a German tourist who got lost in the center of a city where not even a child would get lost. This man, he explains to us, is from Berlin. An irrelevant detail, on which, however, Dalla builds surreal next verse.
Berlin, I’ve been there with Bonetti
It was a little sad and very big
But I broke
I’ll go home and I’ll get back into my underwear
Who is Bonetti? And why does the man tell us that he was in Berlin with him? It doesn’t matter, it’s just thoughts of him that roam the city with him. We are in his head, and who this Bonetti is we do not know.
Actually, wanting to get out of the story of the song, Bonetti is a character already known to fans of Lucio Dallawhich appeared in a passage called proper What is Bonetti?released in 1968. Bonetti in question is believed to be the lawyer Paul Bonetti, with which the singer-songwriter used to travel. In any case it doesn’t matter, because despite the surreal encounters the protagonist already has decided to go home and return to his sedentary lifestyle.
Before going up the stairs I stopped
To look at a star
I am very worried
The silence swelled my chapel
The incredible and oxymoronic binomial poetry/masturbation finds its maximum expression in this verse: the romantic side of man comes out in looking at a star (and the song on this passage also seems to return to the intimate arrangement of the intro). However, soon after, we return to the light-hearted rhythm. After all “Silence thickens the chapel”.
I did my stairs three at a time
I lay down on the sofa
I closed my eyes a little
And gently my hand left
Great verses don’t have to be explained, and this is a very great verse.
Live versions and giveaways
Desperate Erotic Stomp appears as the fifth track on the album How deep is the seareleased in 1977. From that year on, the song became one of the cornerstones of Lucio Dalla’s live setlists.
Gigi Proietti interpreted the lyrics of the song, transposing it in a theatrical key.
Two years after the release of the album, in 1979, Lucio Dalla e Francesco De Gregori they decided to make a historic tour together. The concerts will become a live album called Banana Republic. In 2009, 30 years apart, the two songwriters announce a new album (called Work in Progress), followed by a subsequent tour, together. The disc comes out in 2010, while the tour continues until May 2011. Obviously, there is also an irresistible new version of Desperate Erotic Stompin which the two singers play to interpret the various characters of the text.
Lucio Dalla died the following year, on March 1, 2012, after a concert held in Switzerland. Just three days later, on March 4, he would have turned 69.