Un vecchio cameriere - An Old Waiter

Splendore inconsumato Di tutto l'universo, fiato Punto fermo del cosmo: Terra, desolata.......... Qualcuno ci lancia nella vita Questa nella coscienza: Anche quella di un povero commesso Che nel tempo stesso Apre gli occhi rabbrividendo Al giorno Che gli ghigna attorno Ein alter Kellner Un vecchio cameriere Anche la sua coscienza Getta sulla terra - Dolori e sofferenza I piedi che gli dolgono La moglie pazza E quanto gliene viene Dal fatto che egli è un uomo E appartiene alla razza Un giorno amò Ora si fa il bucato Sognando il re che sarebbe stato Mentre il pensiero di te Si unisce a quel che penso E i cicli del mondo si susseguono Issami su corde per vie canoniche Ascendendo e discendendo Non fate crescere niente Su questa terra Ein alter Kellner Un vecchio cameriere Anche la sua coscienza Getta sulla terra - Dolori e sofferenza I piedi che gli dolgono La moglie pazza E quanto gliene viene Dal fatto che egli è un uomo E appartiene alla razza Non fate crescere niente Su questa terra Ein alter Kellner Un vecchio cameriere © 1995 Franco Battiato & Manlio Sgalambro Battiato set the lyrics of "Un vecchio cameriere" in the Adagio of Franz Joseph Haydn's String Quartet in D Major, Op. 64.

Consumed splendor of the entire universe, breathless end point of the cosmos: Earth, desolate . . . . . . . . Someone throws us into life, this into consciousness: even that of a poor clerk who at the same time opens his eyes cringing at the day that sneers at him round about. Another Kellner. An old waiter, even his consciousness drops onto earth – pains and suffering, his aching feet, the crazy wife. And what comes to him of the fact that he is a man and belongs to the race? One day he loved. Now the laundry is done dreaming of the king he would have been. While the thought of you combines with that which I think and the cycles of the world follow each other. Boost me by ropes onto canonical pathways, ascending and descending. Don’t make anything grow on this land. Another Kellner. An old waiter, even his consciousness drops onto earth – pains and suffering, his aching feet, the crazy wife. And what comes to him of the fact that he is a man and belongs to the race? Don’t make anything grow on this land. Another Kellner. English translation © 2020 Dennis Criteser L'ombrella e la macchina da cucire was released in 1995. It was recorded at Battiato's home using only electronic instruments, and for him it was somewhat of a return to the musical experimentation that characterized his 1970s work. The lyrics were written by Manlio Sgalambro, the Sicilian philosopher who said that, for him, Hegel's The Phenomenology of Spirit sung like music in his ears. References to philosophy and literature abound; the title of the album is taken from a line by the French poet Isidore Ducasse: "Beautiful as a chance encounter between a sewing machine and an umbrella on an operating table." This line, according to Max Ernst, is the key to understanding surrealist poetry - "the search for beauty through the pairing of two seemingly irreconcilable realities." Battiato felt liberated by not having to write lyrics, and he was stimulated to explore and discover new musical realms by the different aesthetic that Sgalambro brought to wordsmithing, one that flows from a man in many ways the opposite of Battiato. Sgalambro described it this way: "Spiritual, transcendent, ascetic the first [Battiato]. Materialist, fleeting, anti-poetic, even cynical, the second [Sgalambro]."

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