1
- Who are you?
- Well, I don't know.
- Who are you?
- I'm a "don't know".
- Irony is a weapon of the middle class, who are you?
- I'm... I'm one who writes.
- Huh, you're a poet.
- Well, call me however you like.
- A revolutionary poet?
- Yes, revolutionary.
- And what do you talk about?
- I talk about man, his relationships, about love, I talk about a tree.
- Huh, about a tree... I was waiting for you to get there. But don't you know that talking about a tree in a time of revolution is like betraying the revolution?
- Is a revolution going on?
- Don't be funny. I was talking about commitment, ideological commitment.
- I've already heard about this one...
- You've already heard it but you didn't learn it.
- It's not that I didn't learn it, it's that I don't care about the brain that goes, goes, who knows where; it has to come through here, inside. It's instinct I care about, it's the guts.
- Huh, the guts... I was waiting for you to get there.
- Well, you're always waiting for me everywhere.
- That's obvious, you are here again with the spiel about feelings, about pains. I know where you are getting at with this. Do you really believe you are of any use?
- Well, I don't know. Am I of any use? Say, say it, you all, am I of any use? They are not saying.
- You are useless. You are a middle-class poet, you withdraw into yourself, you can't bring out an idea, modify it, change it.
- An idea, modify it, change it, elaborate it, it doesn't take a lot at all... It's truly changing oneself, it's changing inside, that is a different matter.
An idea, a concept, an idea,
as long as it remains an idea, it's just an abstraction.
If I could eat an idea,
I would have done my revolution.
In Virginia, Mr. Brown
was the most anti-racist man.
One day, his daughter married
a colored man.
He said «Good»,
but he wasn't in a good mood.
At a conference
of feminist women,
they talked about gaining awareness
and about liberation.
All right things,
for another generation.
An idea, a concept, an idea,
as long as it remains an idea, it's just an abstraction.
If I could eat an idea,
I would have done my revolution.
In a book about psychology,
I learned how to educate my son:
if he grows up free, the baby
is much happier.
I let him do his own thing,
I had a nervous breakdown.
A friend of mine wanted to set up
his family in a new way,
and told his wife:
«If you want, you can even cheat on me».
She cheated on him,
he could no longer sleep.
An idea, a concept, an idea,
as long as it remains an idea, it's just an abstraction.
If I could eat an idea,
I would have done my revolution.
He had many ideas,
he was an avant-garde man,
he dressed in new culture
and changed at every moment.
But when he was naked
he was a man from the 1800s.
I decided to go
to a demonstration:
the comrades, the class struggle,
many nice things,
that I have in my mind,
but not under my skin yet.
An idea, a concept, an idea,
as long as it remains an idea, it's just an abstraction.
If I could eat an idea,
I would have done my revolution,
my revolution, my revolution.
1. The instrumental ouverture and the introductory dialogue are separate tracks of the same album Dialogo tra un impegnato e un non so {Dialogue between a politically involved person and a 'don't know'}.
They are useful to understand the real song.