Search - Adriano Celentano :: Origini I Di Adriano V.1

Tar and Cement

Saro | Northern Territory of Australia | 09/30/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This album is about one song for me; although it has other excellent songs (like "Azzurro" or the blues; as in depression.



For as long as I can remember (and we're talking back to the late '60's) I've had a tune buzzing in my mind of a song that I'd heard a long, long time ago. This 'thing' would pop into my head and I would whistle it. One day, not long ago, a work colleague heard me whistling the tune and told me that the song was written in the 1960's by Adriano Celentano, a famous Italian singer. The song is called "Il Ragazzo Della Via Gluck" (The young man from Gluck Street, a street in Milan, Italy) and it has been copiously covered by english speaking singers as well as French and German and Swedish etc. In the English world, the song is called "Tar and Cement". Have a listen to the Italian original.



The song is about a young man who leaves his country home to seek his fortune in the city. The young man is sad to leave and is chided by his friend as to why this is so given that he is going to a better life full of the things he could not have at home. The young man explains to his friend that he is sad because his heart will always be where he grew up and he, in turn, chides his friend for not understanding how fortunate he is to stay at home and feel the grass at his feet. The young man leaves to make his fortune in the "catrame e cemento" (tar and cement) of the city; always with the thought of returning home one day. He does succeed in the city and he eventually returns only to find that his friends have left and the countryside is not what it was but has also become "catrame e cemento".



Being the son of a person who emigrated from the extreme poverty of Italy after World War II to make their fortune elsewhere, the song reminds me of my father's journey. He too has returned to his home only to find that he doesn't know anyone and that his little town has changed considerably."