Andrea (song)

Andrea
Fabrizio De André
publication	1978
length	5:31
Genre (s)	pop
Author (s)	Fabrizio De André, Massimo Bubola
Label	Dischi Ricordi
album	Rimini
Cover versions
1979	Peter Alexander
1979	Sigi Marron
1983	Tomislav Ivčić
1986	Al Bano & Romina Power

Andrea [ anˈdrɛːa ] ( Italian form of the given name Andreas ) is a song by the Italian cantautore Fabrizio De André , which he wrote together with Massimo Bubola . It was first released on De Andrés ninth studio album Rimini from 1978. Andrea developed into a summer hit in German-speaking countries and attracted a. a. also a cover version by Peter Alexander after himself.

Creation and publication

In 1976 De André moved to Sardinia , where he worked in agriculture. For his new album he worked for the first time with the label Dischi Ricordi and his musician colleague Massimo Bubola. Gian Piero Reverberi , however, continued to act as arranger . American folk and country music are noticeable as new musical and lyrical influences on the album , for example in the instrumentation with fiddle , harmonica , mandolin and ocarina . Andrea , which was made a few years before the rest of the album, is a prime example of these influences and, according to Mariano Prunes from Allmusic , seems like it came straight from "a Western soundtrack by Ennio Morricone ".

Since there was no official single release of the song in Italy (as there was no song on the album at all), Andrea achieved no chart success there (the album had reached number five on the M&D charts). In Germany and Austria as well as in Yugoslavia the song was released as a 7 ″ single, the B-side was made up of the instrumental track Folaghe, also on Rimini . The single then hit the charts in Switzerland and Austria in 1979. Due to the remarkable success with an estimated 7-800,000 copies sold, De André also gave a series of concerts in Germany and Switzerland on his 1981-1983 tour.

Charts	Top ranking	Weeks
Chart placements
Switzerland (IFPI)	6th (10 weeks)	10
Austria (Ö3)	9 (16 weeks)	16

music

The song is based on the D - C - G chord progression throughout . The same four verses (the last of which is extended by two rows) are each formed by a significant mandolins - reef delineated. The outro is a fiddle solo. The percussion follows a bossa nova rhythm.

As is rarely the case with earlier recordings by the musician, the song contains male and female backing vocals , the latter being from De André's partner Dori Ghezzi . Furthermore, the voice of De Andrés is noteworthy, as it exceptionally exceeds the bowed C in this song.

text

In terms of content, the song deals with a homosexual love story against the backdrop of the First World War . De André dedicated it specifically to the "Children of the Moon" (an expression by Plato ), the LGBT community. According to later statements by co-author Bubola, the original title was Lucia , with which the song told a conventional love story about a woman who has lost her lover at the front; the change of sex was done with the intention to “desecrate” this “myth”. The “theme of soldiers in love” draws on literary models such as Nisos and Euryalos ( Aeneid ) or Cloridano and Medoro ( Orlando furioso ). Bubola explains the particular success of the song in the German-speaking countries with the fact that the name Andrea was understood there as a woman's name and thus a “popular love story” was suspected behind it; and Mauro Pagani observed that the song in German-speaking countries as a simple ballatonata d'amore was, "Love Ballad" construed.

In the four stanzas, the grief of the protagonist Andrea over the loss of his lover is told with increasing drama. First of all, there is talk of Andreas' love with "black curls" (un amore, riccioli neri) and the following pain (dolore), which plunges him into despair; in the second stanza the royal letter, which announced the death of an unspecified soldier in the machine gun fire of the mountain war in Trentino (ucciso sui monti di Trento dalla mitraglia) , is mentioned. The pain is again thematized in the third stanza, where Andreas “most valuable pearl” (la perla più rara) is mentioned, which he lost, with “forest eyes” (occhi di bosco) and “French profile” (profilo francese) . At the end Andrea stands at a fountain, where he used to pick violets (raccoglieva violette) and into which he threw locks of black hair - probably from his lover (gettava riccioli neri) , and explains in an imaginary conversation with the well bucket (secchio) that it is enough if the well is deep enough for him (mi basta che sia più profondo di me) . The statement probably indicates Andreas suicide .

Cover versions

B-side of the 1979 Peter Alexander single

As early as 1979 the Austrian pop singer Peter Alexander published a German-language cover version of the song as the B-side of the very successful single And sometimes you cry a few tears at Ariola , produced by Ralph Siegel . While retaining the title, Andrea became female and the person addressed in the text written by the singer himself. There is therefore no contextual connection with the original. In the same year Sigi Maron published a cover version in German, too, but under the true-to-original title Andreas ; the content also came closer to the original.

In 1983 the Yugoslav singer Tomislav Ivčić released another cover version on his album Talijanska ploča , keeping the original Italian text. The Italian duo Al Bano & Romina Power also recorded their own version, which appeared on the 1986 album Semper Semper ; the spanish version of the album siempre siempre also included a spanish version by Andrea .

supporting documents

1. ↑ Died: Fabrizio De André . In: Der Spiegel . No. 3 , 1999, p. 202 ( online ).
2. ^ ^{A b} Mariano Prunes: Rimini, Review. In: Allmusic . All Media Network, accessed October 16, 2015 . 
3. ↑ M&D chart archive. Musica e dischi , accessed on October 16, 2015 (Italian, paid subscription access). 
4. ↑ Riccardo Bertoncelli: Belìn, be sicuro? Storia e canzoni di Fabrizio De André . Giunti, 2013, ISBN 978-88-09-78262-4 , Discografia estera di Fabrizio De André , p. 219 .
5. ^ Fabrizio De André - Andrea. Discogs , accessed October 16, 2015 . 
6. ↑ ^{a b c} Riccardo Bertoncelli: Belìn, sei sicuro? Storia e canzoni di Fabrizio De André . Giunti, 2013, ISBN 978-88-09-78262-4 , Intervista a Mauro Pagani , p. 127-128 .
7. ^ Fabrizio De André - Andrea. In: Hitparade.ch . Hung Medien, accessed May 23, 2020 . 
8. ^ Fabrizio De André - Andrea. In: Austriancharts.at. Hung Medien, accessed May 23, 2020 . 
9. ↑ Andrea. In: Creuza de ma. Retrieved October 16, 2015 (Italian). 
10. ↑ Riccardo Bertoncelli: Belìn, be sicuro? Storia e canzoni di Fabrizio De André . Giunti, 2013, ISBN 978-88-09-78262-4 , Il suonatore Faber , p. 28 .
11. ↑ ^{a b} Fabrizio De André - Andrea. In: Antiwarsongs.org. Retrieved October 16, 2015 (Italian). 
12. ↑ Riccardo Bertoncelli: Belìn, be sicuro? Storia e canzoni di Fabrizio De André . Giunti, 2013, ISBN 978-88-09-78262-4 , Intervista a Massimo Bubola , p. 102 .
13. ↑ Peter Alexander - And sometimes you cry a few tears. Discogs, accessed October 17, 2015 . 
14. ^ Robert Rotifer: Sigi Maron, 1944-2016. In: fm4.orf.at . ORF , July 20, 2016, accessed on August 1, 2016 . 
15. ^ Tomislav Ivčić - Andrea. In: Hitparade.ch. Hung Medien, accessed October 16, 2015 . 
16. ^ Al Bano & Romina Power - Andrea. In: Hitparade.ch. Hung Medien, accessed October 16, 2015 .