Is called Napoleon Goodnighthis latest song. He sings of pine nuts to be crushed with stones and of a vanished love Lucio Corsi33 years old, who last year, in an unexpected way like a true underdog, came second in the Sanremo Festival with the song “I wanted to be a tough guy” and won the Mia Martini Critics Award. And from there success, including a fifth place at Eurovision. Now he is preparing for the tour in the arenas: November 27th in Florence, December 5th in Rome and December 11th in Milan. «In 2008, I was 15 years old Mandela Forum in Florence I saw a concert that changed my life: I was struck by the black guitar of Neil Young. Since that night I have wanted nothing more than long hair and a black electric guitar. In December I will go up on that stage with long hair and a black guitar.” He’s taken a hiatus from the spotlight for the past year, which appears to be about to expire. «Before returning, you need to have something to tell», he says when we meet in front of his piano, in the recording studio in Milan, in the Piazzale Loreto area.
Is he ready to start again after this break?
«I still need time to do things the way I want, to be satisfied with what I write. After the concerts I will still take some time to compose.”
Has popularity changed your life?
«It’s nice to be loved by people of all ages, it gives you energy. And you have to ignore those who ask you: “Aren’t you on television anymore? You’ve disappeared.” I’m writing new stuff, there’s no point in showing up when you have bad songs. It’s better to publish something we can be proud of, otherwise we become a product, like a pair of shoes.”
What are you interested in talking about today?
«I try to filter the world and imagine something else. Telling things as they are outside the window is a waste of paper, disks and computer space. We need to reinvent them, make them better or worse, turn the tables on the table. Use the fantasy».
What is fantasy for you?
«Teach not to be afraid of monstrous things, of those different from you. To understand that you can live with what you don’t know, to dialogue with it. Imagination is the key to my life. Together with the lonelinesswhich I need.”
Why this title, Napoleon Goodnight?
«I tell an adventure made up of great victories and retreats, euphoria and defeats, returns home, escapes and exiles. It’s a narrative song, a love song for loneliness. A decadent Napoleon, somehow glam rock».
The sound is reminiscent of 70s songwriting.
«I’ve been chasing it for years, it’s close to the things I’ve done in the past. Folk music with guitars is something I have refined over time, like my grandmother who has been preparing tortelli with ragù since 1959. I’m interested in changing, both in sound and in the way I write, but it takes time. I’ve been building the album in recent months. I couldn’t bear to post something I’m not convinced of. When the time comes, I will reappear.”
Three years is the time that passes between one of his albums. Will it continue like this even now that the pressures of the record industry and the public are greater?
«I’m not a jukebox: if I don’t have good songs, I won’t move forward. It’s not that because more people are waiting for my record that I have to change the way I think about music. Otherwise I would regret it bitterly.”
How much does Napoleon resemble you?
«Not at all, maybe just in height! (Laughs). I rather recognize myself in this syndrome of having to leave and then return home.”
What are its key points?
«The people who have always been by my side. In Sanremo I had Tommaso (Ottomano, ed.), but Francis (Delacroix, ed.) lives with me these days. The guys who play with me are the same ones since high school. I surrounded myself with trusted people and held them close. In moments of tension or in negative ones, it is essential to have them by your side.”
He often says he needs to be alone, why?
«I am attached to the campaign and what it brings with it. For me loneliness is linked to writing. I’ve always suffered when I had to dedicate part of my time to something other than music: I go crazy, I feel like I’m doing something wrong because I’m not at the piano or writing. It’s a craze, even a negative one, but so far it’s what I’ve always wanted. To do things well and thoroughly, you also need a bit of mania. My balance is not so balanced, but I wallow in it. And when I don’t have it, I miss solitude.”
He will also try new songs on the tour. Aren’t you afraid of burning them?
«The songs are already ghosts, they cannot be burned. I like to test them live because I understand how to record them, where to place them in the set list and what reaction they cause. It is a moment of listening, not necessarily involving the audience in song. I like going to a concert by an artist I respect and hearing a song I don’t know.”
Why doesn’t he sing the songs from his first EPs anymore?
«I struggle, because I wrote them in high school and I no longer recognize myself. I don’t deny them, they were important. But I think it’s good that I don’t feel like I’m in those shoes yet: I don’t like those who want to be young forever.”
Is fantasy a response to what happens in the world?
“Yes. Reinventing things with imagination is an important act. You encounter absurd, monstrous situations, different from you, and you learn to dialogue with them. Even a lot of political messes come from people who don’t have confidence in the imagination. They are afraid, and fear is fought by imagining, by getting used to what is far from us. Imagination remains revolutionary.”
What do you think of the recent demonstrations in Milan?
«Violence is always to be condemned. But I love those kids who took to the streets, angry, to ask for a better future. They are the present: they are not us, they are the ones who go to school and who will have to live in the world we are building. It is a great hope to see them together fighting for a better education. I’m sorry that those who destroy shop windows and those who demonstrate peacefully are unable to have a common dream. Instead they should have it.”
Do you have any memories of your high school?
«I attended the Grosseto Scientific High Schooland in the classroom there was a crack in the classroom wall, a hole from which you could see the garden. I recently asked some guys who frequent him today if that crack was still there: it’s still there.”
Who do you consult when you have doubts?
«My grandmother is a lesson just by looking at her: from 1959 to today she has remained untouchable. She went to school in a buggy, along with her eight other sisters, and was the only one with a driving licence. He built the restaurant, where he made them all work. My mother and my aunt also dedicated their lives to work. It’s a gigantic lesson, which pushed me to roll up my sleeves.”
Is there anyone in your family who criticizes you?
«My mother, especially when listening to my pieces for the first time. Then, after a few days, she comes to tell me that she regrets it.”
