Un'idea [English translation]

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.

• Artist:Giorgio Gaber
• Album:Dialogo tra un impegnato e un non so