L'avvelenata [English translation]

Look, if I had predicted all of this

Dates, causes and excuses

The actual results

Do you reckon that for this tuppence

This wanker's glory

I would have written songs?

Fine, I admit it, I was wrong

I'll take my cross to bear, and be it so

I ask for time, I'm of my breed

However large that is, the first-generation student

My father, in the end, was right

When he said a pension is really important

My mother wasn't wrong either

To say a graduate counts more than a singer

Young and naive, I lost my head

Whether it was the books, or my provincialism

And a dick up my arse, and accusations of being a sell-out

Whispers that I'm a wishy-washy centrist are all that I've got left

You critcs, oh you austere beings

You severe militants, I ask your graces pardon

But I never said that songs make revolutions

They might make poetry

I sing when I can, as I can

When I feel like it, never mind the cheers or boos

Selling or not doesn't count among my risks

You don't buy my discs, and you spit on me.

What do you reckon I get out of

Taking on the hassle

Of standing up there singing?

I'm happier getting drunk

Or maybe having a wank

Or at most, fucking.

If I'm in a dark mood, then I write

Rummaging around inside our miseries

Usually I've got more serious things to do

Building on the rubble, or keeping myself alive

I, the everyman, the nobody, the dickhead, the drunk

The poet, the buffoon, the anarchist, the fascist

The rich, the poor, the radical

The different, the same-old, the black, the Jew, the Communist!

I, the faggot, I, Mr I-sing-to-pull-the-ladies

I the phony, the real thing, the genius, the moron

I, alone here at four in the morning

Angst and a little wine

and in the mood for swearing

Why do you reckon I should bother

To stand and listen

To whoever's got beef?

Of course the doctor tells me "you're depressed"

Not even on the bog

Do I get a moment to myself

And I who always said this was a game

Knowing or not how to use a certain metre

Well, comrades, the joke's getting tired and bleak

Just buy my arse, I'm selling it for cheap.

Fellow songwriters, you ranks of the chosen

Who sell out every night

For a few million

You who can, - you're doing great

With your pockets full

And not just your balls

What can I tell you? Get out there and do it,

There'll always be, as well you know

A failed musician, a puritan, a theorist

A Bertoncelli or a priest, around to spout bullshit

But if I had predicted all of this

Dates, causes and excuses

Perhaps I'd do the same

I like writing songs and drinking wine

I like causing trouble

And besides I'm a born sucker.

And so I'll get by, and I'll not cast off

The usual clothes I wear

So many things that I've still got to tell

For those who want to listen

And bugger all the rest of it.

• Artist:Francesco Guccini
• Album:Via Paolo Fabbri 43