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**Tutti Morimmo A Stento**
**Fabrizio De André**
★★★★☆

In the pantheon of Italian singer-songwriters, few figures loom as large or as enigmatic as Fabrizio De André, and perhaps no album in his catalogue burns with quite the same raw, unflinching intensity as 1968's "Tutti Morimmo A Stento" (We All Died With Difficulty). Arriving at the tail end of a tumultuous decade that saw Europe convulsing with social upheaval, this third studio effort found De André at his most uncompromising, crafting a collection of songs that read like dispatches from society's forgotten margins.

The album emerged from a particularly fertile period in De André's creative development, following the critical success of his previous works "Volume 1" and "Tutti Morimmo A Stento" saw him collaborating once again with composer and arranger Gian Piero Reverberi, whose baroque arrangements would prove the perfect foil for De André's increasingly sophisticated songwriting. The partnership had already yielded fruit, but here it blossomed into something approaching genius, wedding classical instrumentation with folk sensibilities and a decidedly modern existential dread.

Musically, the album occupies a fascinating middle ground between the chanson tradition of Jacques Brel and Georges Brassens – both clear influences on De André's work – and the emerging folk revival that was sweeping across Europe and America. Yet this is no mere pastiche; De André's voice, weathered beyond his years and possessed of an almost supernatural ability to convey world-weariness, transforms these influences into something uniquely Italian. The arrangements favour strings, woodwinds, and classical guitar, creating an atmosphere that's simultaneously intimate and cinematic.

The album's masterstroke is undoubtedly "La Canzone di Marinella," a devastating portrait of a woman destroyed by circumstance and society's indifference. Over a deceptively gentle melody that recalls a childhood lullaby, De André spins a tale of tragic inevitability that builds to one of the most haunting refrains in popular music. It's storytelling of the highest order, compressed into four minutes of devastating emotional impact. The song has since become one of De André's most beloved compositions, covered countless times but never bettered.

Equally compelling is "Il Pescatore," which finds De André adopting the persona of a simple fisherman who offers shelter to a fleeing anarchist, only to later extend the same courtesy to his pursuer. It's a parable about the fundamental decency that transcends political boundaries, delivered with the kind of moral clarity that would become a De André hallmark. The song's circular structure mirrors its philosophical message about the cyclical nature of violence and compassion.

"Geordie," De André's Italian adaptation of the traditional English ballad, showcases his gift for cultural translation. Rather than simply rendering the lyrics into Italian, he reimagines the story entirely, maintaining the emotional core while making it speak to contemporary concerns about justice and class. It's a technique he would perfect throughout his career, but rarely with such elegant economy.

The album's title track serves as both mission statement and epitaph, a meditation on survival that feels particularly prescient given the social upheavals of 1968. De André's protagonists don't die heroically; they die "with difficulty," clinging to life with the same stubborn persistence that characterizes the marginalized figures who populate his songs. It's a philosophy that would inform his entire career: an unflinching examination of life's darker corners, tempered by an almost religious compassion for human frailty.

More than five decades after its release, "Tutti Morimmo A Stento" endures as a high-water mark in Italian popular music. Its influence can be traced through generations of singer-songwriters, from Lucio Dalla to more contemporary artists like Vinicio Capossela. The album's reputation has only grown with time, recognized not just as a crucial document of its era but as a timeless exploration of themes that remain painfully relevant.

De André himself would go on to create other masterpieces – "Non al Denaro Non all'Amore Né al Cielo" and "Storia di un Impiegato" among them – but "Tutti Morimmo A Stento" remains the album where his unique voice first achieved full flower. It's essential listening for anyone seeking to understand not just Italian music, but the broader tradition of the poet-trouba