Luna rossa [English translation]

The afternoon of the 12th December

In Piazza del Duomo1 you have lighted it up

But in Corso Street there are no lights

The municipality removed them for the hot autumn

In Piazza Fontana the traffic is chaotic

There's the farmers' market

In a few hours in Milan on the bus

The head hidden in the raised collar of the coat

Everything has to be done very quickly

Because the bank closes its counters

Oh how everything flies so quickly

Savings and people, everything so quickly

No, no, no, we can no longer sleep

The moon is red and red with violence

Dreams have to be mourned to understand

That the last bourgeois justice is dead

December comes during the night

While people talk about Christmas

If this life had a future

I'd buy a house, maybe I'd like it

People say that in Fontana Square

Maybe a boiler blew up

There in the Square sixteen corpses

A cardinal was blessing them

No, no, no, we can no longer sleep

The moon is red and red with violence

Dreams have to be mourned to understand

That the last bourgeois justice is dead

Nights of blood and terror

Come down in my country

Who will pay for the innocent victims?

Who will give life to Pinelli2 the trainman?

Yesterday I dreamed of my master

At a confidential meeting

They all took their hats off

Before doing this massacre

No, no, no, we can no longer sleep

The moon is red and red with violence

Dreams have to be mourned to understand

That the last bourgeois justice is dead

On the mountain of our martyrs

Swearing on Gramsci3 and Matteotti4

On the worker fallen at the building site

On every comrade buried in prison

Fascism comes like an old man

It sucks the life out of every youth

But can't you hear the shout at the barricade?

The working class continues its fight!

No, no, no, we can no longer sleep

The moon is red and red with violence

Dreams have to be mourned to understand

That the last bourgeois justice is dead

No, no, no, we can no longer sleep

The moon is red and red with violence

Dreams have to be mourned to understand

That the last bourgeois justice is dead

1. The main square of Milan.2. Giuseppe Pinelli was a railroad worker and anarchist. He was picked up, along with other anarchists, for questioning regarding the attack in Piazza Fontana. Just before midnight on 15 December 1969, Pinelli was seen to fall to his death from a fourth floor window of the Milan police station.3. Antonio Gramsci was a founding member and one-time leader of the Communist Party of Italy. He was imprisoned by Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime.4. Giacomo Matteotti was the leader of the Italian United Socialist Party. He was kidnapped and killed by Fascists because he spoke out against Fascism and Benito Mussolini.

• Artist:Banda Bassotti