D‘Suddenly the chainsaw he was using in the home garden caught fire. Simone Cristicchi He frightened himself, stumbled and beat his head against a sharp stone. He would probably have died blew if he had not had Erika Mineo next to him, that is, bitter, his partner of art and life.
For this it was very exciting See them sing together with Sanremo in the evening of the covers Cure by Franco Battiato: «We already sing it together in the show We will come back again in which we revisit Franco’s most mystical repertoire. Singing it to Ariston was our response calm to the commodified love that seems to dominate today ». Also the song with which Simone was in the race, When you are smallit is therapeutic, with its invitation to reflect on human fragility, in particular of the parents who at some point in life find themselves being cared for by their children. «I wrote it during the pandemic, thinking of my mom Luciana who in those weeks in which we were closed at home I could not see. In 2012 he had a cerebral hemorrhage that seriously affected it in the body and in the use of the word, but fortunately not in lucidity. She has returned child and with her smile lights the world. And he is always in the front row with his wheelchair when I perform in Rome ».
The festival, on the other hand, followed him from TV: «He is happy, even if the first time he listened to When you are small He said to me: “It’s a beautiful song, but I haven’t gone so on the head yet …”. Recently, we found his collection of vinyls: there were records by Gino Paoli, Luigi Tenco, Sergio Endrigo. If I became a songwriter it is also thanks to him ».
The art for Simone was a real salvation: «I lost my father as a child and for two years I was closed in my CUPto. If I hadn’t had the relief valve of art, with drawing and music, perhaps I would still be in that room. Or I would have become a violent man ». The concept of care for Simone is strictly intertwined with the word attention, with which not by chance another his theatrical show begins, From ego to us. “On the dictionary I discovered that it does not mean” being concentrated “but” turn the soul towards something “. So when I am in a state of attention I escape from my ego, from the prison I built. AND When you get out of yourself, you realize that others also exist. I am reminded of a fun episode that happened to me some time ago. I was in Benevento to represent my show in front of a schoolchild Warehouse 18 on the Istrian exodus in the post -war period. While I recited, I saw in the first rows of the mobile lights that were continuously turned on and, discouraged, I thought I had not been able to capture the attention of the boys. A few days later I received an email: “Dear Mr. Cristicchi, we loved his show. We wanted to apologize for the people who always controlled the cell phone: they were our professors“»
When, as in his case, an artist enjoys an almost unanimous appreciation by criticism and audience cemented in decades of career, it is easy to take himself too seriously and transform himself into a guru that dispenses pills of wisdom on every occasion. A risk that Cristicchi keeps at bay “because I can still amaze me with everything. I try to maintain a pure vision on things and to think about the future. I resumed The tour of my show on San Francesco d’Assisi. In a world that goes to the Russian mountains, we need to stay with our feet on the ground».
There is still time for one last curiosity. In the new album there is a song, The illegal immigrantwhich is the acronym of the police of the same name with Edoardo Leo aired last year on Rai. A commissioned job? «Yes, I wrote it instinctively, knowing only in summary the characteristics of the character and a portrait of mine came out. The clandestine is an observer who does not reflect in anything, but is curious about everything. In the Gospel of John and in the Sufi tradition there is the same sentence that I also resumed in my song From darkness to light: “Being in the world, but do not belong to the world” “
