La buona novella: Difference between revisions

 

The journalist [[w:it:Andrea Monda|Andrea Monda]], director of the Vatican newspaper [[w:L'Osservatore Romano|L'Osservatore Romano]], notes that this last song in the album is in reality a hymn to the mercy of Jesus. In fact Fabrizio De André himself said, during an interview with Giampaolo Mattei<ref>Mattei published this and other similar interviews in the volume '''''Anima mia''''' (1998)</ref>:

 

This long acoustic ballad, which has ten verses each of which is dedicated to one of the Ten Commandments, tells the story of the life and death of the "good thief" Titus, and yet from the lyrics Titus doesn't actually seem all that "good". He is an angry and wounded man, and he expresses resentment and vindication. A bitter irony, ready to fall into sarcasm, is in his words, even when speaking about God, with whom he speaks by reminding him and even taunting him about His [[w:Ten Commandments|Decalogue]]. At the eighth commandment Titus makes his greatest accusation: «They know divine law by heart, / but they always forget about forgiveness». Titus condemns pharisaism, in other words the hypocrisy of those who preach a formal compliance with the law but never exercise mercy. A criticism of religion which does however reveal the search for a true, sincere and believable faith. A search that doesn't appear explicitly in the song but is surely present in the finale which sheds a whole new light on the whole song.