Paolo Jannacci on “Scimmie ovunque”: The Interview
From human vulnerability and self-censorship to his father Enzo’s legacy and Sanremo, Paolo Jannacci talks to us about his new album and music’s power to reconnect us with our humanity.
Now in his fifties, the artist feels an urgent need to strip away the noise and layers of artifice to reach the essence of human truth. With his new album "Scimmie ovunque", born out of an intensive process of writing and exchanging ideas with lyricist Paolo Re, Paolo Jannacci delivers a bold, unfiltered work. A record unafraid to delve into the darker corners of our society—from drug addiction to workplace deaths, femicide and the invisible danger of growing accustomed to evil—without losing sight of the light of kindness and love.
In this thoughtful, intimate conversation, Jannacci opens up about everything from the enduring legacy of his father Enzo to music’s irreplaceable role as an antidote to today’s background noise, and his relationship with the Ariston stage. A clear-eyed reflection on the "jungle" from which humanity, caught between selfishness and dystopia, is still desperately seeking a way out.
Paolo, why did you choose to explore human vulnerability without filters?
Because the time had come. Perhaps at fifty you begin to search for truth. That is partly what an artist does, but when you are young, you want other things too, a different kind of fun. Then time passes, you gain experience, you learn the ropes, as they say, and perhaps what you want becomes a search for this human truth, a way of awakening your own sensitivity and, of course, that of whoever is listening.
So it came naturally to us. I say “us” because there is also Paolo Re, my lyricist, who has accompanied me on this journey for at least five years. Every day we would tell each other stories, talk about films, dream up films and then discard them to create others… We found ourselves talking about our vulnerabilities, our fears, our ghosts, trying to exorcise them and work out how to find a way through this negativity.
Sometimes even human wickedness… Even if you cannot resolve it, simply drawing attention to it, even making ourselves aware of it, becomes a step towards solving the equation. Perhaps it is one of the first operations needed to try to solve such a complex equation.
Is the evil of our time human wickedness, or our ability to grow accustomed to it?
Both. It is a good question, because the ability to grow accustomed to cruelty is an enormous risk. It makes you forget beauty, for example. We live in an extraordinarily beautiful country, a wonderful country, perhaps the most beautiful in the world, yet we forget it. Not so much out of snobbery or malice, but simply out of habit, and habit can pose a considerable risk. An artist tries to scrape away that habit.
Our selfishness is perhaps the greatest danger Homo sapiens can face, because everything—even the album—revolves around this possibility of regressing, a possibility that applies to me too, especially to me. Regressing, ironically, into what? Into an animal that makes me laugh but terrifies me at the same time: the monkey. When you think of a little monkey, it makes you laugh, doesn’t it? But then, when it reacts in an unexpected way, it worries you; it can attack you.
Kubrick told us as much back in his day.
Exactly.
You are one of the few contemporary singer-songwriters who talk about the people society would rather not see. Has music gone along with politics’ lack of interest?
Music absolutely cannot disengage from politics because, on the contrary, it sharpens the interest of the listener, of anyone immersed in music. Perhaps the problem is that musical messages are becoming insufficiently entertaining, specific or clear. So what happens? They become noise, background noise. The sheer quantity does not help either. This mass of musical information reaching us every hour. I think it must be impossible for you to review everything coming out. Or you would need an editorial team of robots. When we are talking about 50,000 or 80,000 tracks a day, you can see how, in my view, that could drain an artistic message of its power. When De Gregori released a project, a concept album, I would go and listen: what does he have to say? How does he say it? How does the kind of music he has chosen make me feel?
Now it is a din, you know? There is also the fact that you no longer have the tactile experience of an object. This might sound like an old man’s complaint, but it does not help. Being overwhelmed by singles and artwork does not help. It is wonderful because there is so much to listen to, but when it becomes too much, everything cancels itself out. I am speaking from personal experience: when I used to buy CDs and records, I would absorb certain sounds, turns of phrase, ways of speaking, words, rhythms—everything music could offer, whether pop or more highbrow, symphonic music—into my memory and my artistic frame of reference. Since the floodgates opened, what can you listen to? Everything. Yet I have listened to perhaps a tenth of what I used to, because for me it is too much. Everything is too much.
At one point in Politically Topless, you and Elio exclaim, “But can we say Gaza? No.” There have hardly been that many artists speaking out for Palestine, especially in Italy.
I completely understand: look at what happened with Ghali at Sanremo a while ago. Or take any artist like me, who thinks of a sentence and immediately censors himself. That should not happen. I believe an artist should come to the aid of humanity as a whole, because siding with a single individual can even be counterproductive: you erase a whole section of humanity, so many people who have the right to exist and practise their beliefs peacefully.
In my view, we need to find a path for human becoming that is more profound and breaks free from the patterns most closely tied to violence, selfishness and brute force, and therefore to warmongering. Put it however you like, but I would almost feel uncomfortable being specific. To my mind, this is not an exercise in sitting on the fence, but a more Renaissance-minded outlook, in which humanity, the human being, must be reconsidered in all its beauty and wholeness.
Copertina - Album "Scimmie Ovunque"
Speaking of self-censorship, your father and his generation built brilliant careers on challenging bourgeois respectability. There is an intimate, powerful dialogue with your roots on this record. On the one hand, Enzo, l’incrocio e tutto il resto; on the other, your revival of Due gelati. Has your approach to your father’s memory changed over time? Perhaps it used to be more of a legacy to protect, whereas now it is also living material to shape for your present?
You have hit the nail on the head. I think there is a search for understanding, so we have moved—or rather, we are moving, let’s use the continuous form—from a carefully guarded archive towards knowledge and discovery. For younger generations too, for people like you: the fact that you can get to know Enzo Jannacci is something very beautiful to me, because it is something I have always tried to make possible, and it was never a given. An artist goes through different stages of life, doesn’t he? From early youth to maturity, when he may want to explore slower-paced but more important themes, and the fact that you lose touch with certain age groups, certain generations, always gives you pause. So seeing him being rediscovered is wonderful to me, because it means we have done a good job.
In Il mercato nero degli abbracci, you imagine a dystopia in which physical contact is forbidden, while in La rosa e il fiorista you explore the care and tenderness of a profound love.
They are different facets of all my cinematic fears. But they are desires too: an openness to love that manages to triumph, because beauty, this vibrational process that helps you rise higher, become more intense and more sensitive, opens you up to a different sensibility, a different spirituality, a different kind of cultural and artistic understanding. These things lift you up as a human being, make you forget selfishness, cruelty and wickedness—intelligence turned towards evil, which is characteristic of human beings, not animals. In La rosa e il fiorista, we felt that telling the story of a love so intense that someone waits a lifetime for his beloved would make a truly beautiful story.
Who are the “florists” willing to cultivate the rose in today’s black market?
That is for you to discover.
A song is a medium, a mirror showing us how far we have regressed, but can it also be an antidote that helps reverse the mutation?
A song is certainly an antidote, because it simply awakens your emotional sensitivity; then it is up to you, the listener, to channel that impulse towards something more or less elevated, more or less good. That is what an artist does: tries to offer suggestions. I try to do that without making too many grand pronouncements, because I do not have all the answers. I am not such a great poet or such a learned person. But I like being able to offer suggestions, because among us there is always someone who will make a difference.
I learnt this approach from a line of my father’s, which goes: “There is someone among you who, between being spat on and shoved / Will find another penicillin, other forms of love / Perhaps a little more grit / To drive you all away / You nuisances, you singers—in other words, us.” You are addressing someone perhaps younger than you, perhaps more intense, more intelligent, who takes that little spark you managed to find and turns it into a fire. That is what I hope for.
Enzo Jannacci
You speak of a jungle without saints or heroes: where do you place yourself within it?
I am in the jungle I observe. Sometimes I hide, sometimes I climb to the top to try to see what is happening, but unfortunately I am still in the jungle. I include myself in it too! Of course, it would be lovely to observe it only from a distance, through binoculars, but I am right there inside it.
Has anyone ever managed to get out?
Of course: the great philosophers, the great figures, the great poets who have taught us to change. There are so many. They leave the jungle, look beyond it, observe and leave us instructions on how to get out.
Like Plato’s cave. And what about the cave of Sanremo? Will you go back?
I submitted two songs, which were, if I remember correctly, Scimmie ovunque and Il giorno prima, because we really liked them—two different songs. But I genuinely received no response at all. I can imagine the pandemonium for those listening to the submissions, especially poor Stefano De Martino, whom I am very fond of: I can imagine how many songs he must be hearing, so I do not blame anyone. I asked them to give me some indication: should I postpone the album’s release, perhaps? Nobody replied. So I decided to go ahead, because I really wanted to talk about the record, to finally release it, because so much time had passed.
I feel the weight of my years; you feel yours less, but mine weigh more heavily, and songs grow old too. I tried to write songs that had no age. I like timeless songs, because they are the ones you carry with you throughout your life, the ones you are glad to have sung. If you fixate on a single moment in time, it can be wonderful, but then that is where it ends: you have written a beautiful song, but it fades as time goes by. I kept writing for at least five years. I did not set myself a deadline: I kept writing until the record was ready. It needed to come out.
So you see no contradiction between the socially engaged themes you explore and the Ariston.
I have learnt not to dwell on the layers of artifice. Because if we think about Sanremo and all the baggage surrounding it, we cannot do anything any more. If you think of Sanremo the way I do, as a great stage—which is why we went there with my father in the first place—a great stage where you put on a show, where you have, I would not say an obligation, but even a moral duty to create a good show for your audience, then it is very simple. It is the same point as before: trying to simplify the human equation as much as possible. We all have the same blood, we all breathe the same air, as good old John Kennedy said, we all live on this little yet vast planet: the Ariston is one of Italy’s many theatres. Its reach is amplified, but it is still a theatre.
"Scimmie Ovunque"
Cover image: Paolo Jannacci.
Born in 1998. A journalist (Rockol, La Gazzetta dello Sport) and social media manager for various organisations and institutions. Firmly believes that the history of society can be read through the grooves of a vinyl record, the films of Park Chan-wook and the exhausted faces of cyclists at the Paris–Roubaix finish line. Listens to Giorgio Gaber to find new questions and looks into their dogs’ eyes to find the answers.
