Ligabue is someone who cares about the concept of “we”. In his songs, the idea of a collective – be it the company trying to escape the provinces, the band playing rock, a loose dog that ideally recognizes itself in a generational pack – always had an important place. The first person plural returns in the title of the new album, out September 22nd: “Dedicated to us”.
Judging by the texts, which often talk about couples, his idea of “us” seems to have narrowed…
“I wasn’t thinking about size, but about the need for a ‘we’. I have coped with the worst beginning of one of the six decades I have lived: the pandemic, the war on our continent, the disasters related to climate change, femicides and rapes that are a symbol of cultural backwardness, Generation Z, the goes to the psychologist in bulk because he is growing without any idea of the future… Added to this is a social picture of fragmentation and isolation. A whole that scares you and scares you alone. That’s why I feel a need for “we.” What I see in the couple I extend to the family, then to the background I have in my head, which is my audience, and finally to an idealized and frayed “we” which includes those who ” out of fashion, out of time, in” are “Short Always Out”, which I sang about on my debut and to which I still consistently belong today.
“It is not the right time for us…and perhaps it never will be.” Prophecy fulfilled?
“Those were happier times, but I was also more energetic.” Today we deserve the reward of being part of it together: it’s healing.”
Horrible start to a decade… However, at the beginning of the 1990s there was the Gulf War and the one in the former Yugoslavia and Berlusconi’s invasion…
“It seems to me that we are hardly aware of the traces left by the pandemic… We are also in a heyday of technology, but it reflects poorly on us, especially when it comes to the use of social media.”
“A corner of m…”, whose sketches reach everyone as he sings in the angry song “Music and Words”.
“This sentence comes from a feeling of disorientation in the face of the general commentary. I don’t go and read the comments to give them no power.”
Is the music bad too?
“I’ll install that too. I’m a disoriented listener and the huge choice the platforms offer, 100,000 new songs every day, makes me a worse listener.”
Fourteenth career album: Does it still make sense in the streaming age?
“I also drive straight because I don’t have a steering wheel and couldn’t get the system to steer. At the live performance (debut on October 9th in the arena and then in the stadium, editor’s note) I will perform all the songs from “Dedicato a noi” in a setlist that will be different every night .
With “Who knows if God feels alone” he returns to address the Most High…
“In “Have a moment God” there was a happier idea, I was almost disrespectful. Then I needed a non-oppressive dialogue. Here God is not the center of the scene, he is observing the unpleasant spectacle that is us.”
Those of “No Plan B”, in whose text war, inequalities, climate change are filters…
“When I wrote this, I thought about the arrogance of financial power: the 100 richest people in the world have the same wealth as the other 4 billion people.” They won. We are on a Titanic and have the iceberg in front of us, but the system continues to allow some of them to accumulate, even beyond the needs of the heirs, and does not care about others.”
What if someone sees you as a leader for “us”?
“If I’m seen as someone who makes you think, that’s fine. But I feel more like a sentimental reference point, not in a romantic sense, but more as someone who offers ideas.”
His son Lenny had already worked on a few tracks and is the official drummer here.
«I didn’t suggest it, I would have been embarrassed… The producer Fabrizio Barbacci said it would have been perfect for this album. It made me proud, but above all something beautiful emerged from this collaboration from a personal perspective. There was a lot of time to talk about what’s behind these songs. Lenny had never known me personally that well.
Ready for criticism?
“Lenny has strong shoulders. What worries me more is that he wants to become a producer and continue to live in Correggio.