Quattro stracci [English translation]

I look out the window

and I see the usual wall, the one you know.

A cigarette or a pen in my right hand,

shallow symbols you never liked.

You never liked what I wear,

I tell tales, I speak and to you I'm a mute,

smoking and writing sound odd to you,

you prefer the hands of an artisan,

and the only thing you do is erasing me.

But I'm proud of my dreaming,

of this enduring stumble of mine,

and I laugh at what you look for and you'll never get.

Don't you know one needs knowledge and perseverance

to grow old without reaching maturity?

Mature or not, I've had enough

of your complicated simplicity.

And then, who said you are right,

with your "also sprach" of maturity,

maybe it's a ready-to use self-deception,

suited to a self-pitying victim of oppression,

of mistreatment by a narrow-minded world and of fate.

Let everyone go where they want,

let everyone get old the way they like,

but don't tell me what freedom is.

The freedom of your concoctions,

of yoga, herbs, psyche, homeopathy,

of handbooks against the frustrations

and restrictions you felt here at my place.

The boredom caused by someone who's not a hands-on type,

who doesn't have the resolve of a mathematician

who doesn't know his way around cars

who doesn't even know how to drive

who gets lost chasing clouds and poetry.

But now I bet you'd like to try

things you wouldn't do with me:

making love, staying up late, and fantasy.

Fantasy can ruin a person

if they don't know how to tame it,

but it's cheap, it's not worth much,

and no one can prevent you from using it anymore.

I - thank God - am not your father,

I don't have a ballsy attitude,

you have the fantasy of crooked ideas

you go around with a limited mind and short legs,

and you'll always have time to sort out [your fantasy].

The roads of the world are open to you,

after all someone always has your back,

and you'll always find good excuses to reject [your fantasy].

You have been really gifted at rejecting,

wasting your time rejecting me,

but there's no alibi, no remedy,

come to think of it, there's no reason.

Born in March, born odd1,

a chaste woman who dreams to be a slut,

when you're in you want to be out

you're always looking for past loves,

and you cancelled everyone but yourself.

But now I nail you down to your thoughts,

that bunch of rags where you threw the old days,

you're always chasing what doesn't exist.

1. Italian saying about people born in March

• Artist:Francesco Guccini
• Album:D'amore di morte e d'altre sciocchezze