Un ottico [English translation]

Part one:

Color-blinds, far-sighteds, beggars of sight,

the merchant of light, your eye doctor,

now wants only special customers

who don't know what to do with normal eyes.

No more optometrist but lenses-pusher

to improvise happy eyes,

because the pupils used to copy

could invent worlds to look at.

Follow with me those eyes dreaming,

escape from the orbit, and not wanting to come back.

Part two:

First costumer

- I see that I get to steal the sun

for not having more nights,

for not falling into networks of sunset,

I've closed it in my eyes,

and whoever will be cold

along my sight will have to warm up.

Second costumer

- I see rivers in my veins,

they seek their sea,

they break the dams,

they find skies to portray.

Blood flowing without fantasy

carying tumors of melancholy.

Third costumer

- I see policemen grazing

women bent on the dew,

red tongues on the pollen of the flowers

but where is the queen bee?

Maybe she flew to the nests of the dawn,

maybe flew, perhaps she no longer flies.

Fourth costumer

- I see friends still on the road,

they do not have to rush,

they still steal joy to the sleep,

to the dawn a little of night;

and then the light, the light which transforms

the world into a toy.

We will make glasses like this!

We will make glasses like this!

• Artist:Fabrizio De André
• Album:Non al denaro non all’amore né al cielo (1971)