SHOUT SONGS

SHOUT SONGS

Mar 9, 2025 | MUSIC, ROCK

Basically, the definition of shout songs refers to the Gospel genre: a strongly rhythmic religious song in the African-American folk tradition, characterised by chants or shouts of response between the leader and the congregation.

Shouts of invocation, we can say of a joyful kind.

However, when I think of shout songs, completely different songs immediately materialise in my mind.

Songs that are irresistible to me, in the sense that when I listen to them, I feel strongly involved and find myself singing with an unequivocally liberating emphasis.

Shouts that drag out a load of emotions.

What is the quintessential shout song in your opinion?

Wandering around the web in search of answers, the song mentioned the most left me somewhat perplexed.

It is actually one of the songs in the index of my Heron Formula, so it has a special meaning for me, but for my vision it does not exactly correspond to the idea of a shout song: Won’t Get Fooled Again – Roger Daltrey – The Who.

What do you think?

Going on a sort of statistics of the most quoted songs, I realised that a high percentage of them are in my index. 

A fluke? Definitely not: obviously it all comes down to my vision of music.

What do you prefer to sing instead?

I know, I should use the verb to listen, but shout songs provides an additional level of involvement.

Speaking of involvement, I also take this opportunity to talk about Emily Armstrong.

shout songs

Her singing screamed a huge responsibility: to get on stage with Linkin Park.

Surely no one considered the thought of a replacement: impossible, but still a huge perplexity remained.

That’s why I appreciated Mike Shinoda’s sentence: the voice of Chester Bennington is you.

We are the voice of those who have left us.

In contrast to the shouting, there are those who have chosen silence, no less than a thousand artists: 1,000 UK Artists. 

shout songs

These 1,000 UK Artists have released a 12-track album entitled Is that what we want?

Here are the titles:
1. The
2. British
3. Government
4. Must
5. Not
6. Legalise
7. Music
8. Theft
9. To
10. Benefit
11. AI
12. Companies

These tracks do not contain any of the thousands of entries among which we can mention Annie Lennox and Kate Bush and represent the artists’ protest against the proposed change in copyright law.

The amendment would allow artificial intelligence companies to create their own products using rights-protected work: music, lyrics, etc., without a licence, effectively favouring the so-called training of algorithms without providing any remuneration for authors.

Silence to communicate.

Shall we also add our voice?

Or perhaps I should say let us also add our shout …

GENTRIFICATION OR SUPERMARKETIFICATION?

GENTRIFICATION OR SUPERMARKETIFICATION?

Mar 1, 2025 | WHO CARES

Gentrification we know by now, is the term coined to define urban redevelopment that involves a change in the original social fabric.

The small country gentry, in today’s times we could extend the concept to those who fit the description of middle class? Rich? Fortunate?

In short, ‘gentrified’ urban areas are neighbourhoods converted into areas accessible only to those with the purchasing power to sustain a very high standard of living.

Do you find this a positive or negative phenomenon?

The broken windows theory comes to mind.

We had already chatted about Philip Zimbardo on the Lucifer effect. 

Another experiment, again at Stanford University 1969: originally on two absolutely identical cars, one abandoned in Palo Alto, which remained in place intact, unlike the one abandoned in Bronx.

The breaking of the stall coincides with the breaking of a window of the car in Palo Alto, a prelude to looting in line with the car in Bronx.

As if to say that something that already appears damaged presupposes that it is not taken into account.

An idea later taken up by Rudolph Giuliani for New York City, starting with the underground.

Can we define New York as the epitome of gentrification?

Is your city gentrified?

Vigevano is not, in fact I would need a word for the exact opposite.

Degradation?

In fact, a part of the historic centre instead of being gentrified gradually becomes ‘disqualified’.

Several times I have told you about our province, Max Pezzali in the days of the lire had described it in four words: two discotheques, one hundred and six pharmacies. 

The one hundred and six pharmacies are still there, the discotheques are not.

And there is no alternative.

Nothing at all for the youngsters, who find themselves left to their own devices, but in constant company of the risk of being attacked and robbed by packs of peers well known to the police.

On the other hand, we have a number of supermarkets that is trending towards infinity as it keeps growing.

By now we are at the level of card collecting, even the ‘double’ ones have become so many.

The certainty is that one will come out of each supermarket with some kind of dissatisfaction, as well as enormous nostalgia for that now extinct trade.

I invent the definition: supermarketification.

No doubt we have to eat, but by now the need for nourishment of another kind has also become pressing: cultural nourishment, social nourishment, and the hunger to feel free.

Gentrification or supermarketfication?

Couldn’t we simply progress?

ACCABADORA

ACCABADORA

Feb 22, 2025 | BOOKS

Accabadora is a book that needs no introduction: everyone knows it.

However, I only read it now, thanks to ‘Monica books.’

I open it and find the dedication:
To my mother
Both of them

I immediately send a message to Monica telling her that I did not know Michela Murgia had been adopted.

She replies: ‘Read.’

Now I know what fillus de anima are: children of the soul.

So we find ourselves once again talking about the meaning of motherhood as extensive as the love it encompasses.

Mothers. 

But not only that, as was the case with The Children’s Trains communities are active participants in these dynamics of fostering children from families who are unable to raise them, to families who take them in.

Honestly, I did not even know the meaning of the word Accabadora, which comes from the Spanish acabar = to finish, but in its deepest sense is always linked to the concept of mother, in this case the last.

Did a figure like Sa Accabadora also exist in your region?

I had never heard of anything like that.

But I remember hearing about people who ‘signed’.

The ‘signers’ were considered to be able to heal or in some way protect against evil through their signs.

What popular figures are linked to where you live?

THOMAS O’MALLEY AND DUCHESS IN VIGEVANO

THOMAS O’MALLEY AND DUCHESS IN VIGEVANO

Feb 16, 2025 | WHO CARES, WHO CARES

From 14 to 16 February, Vigevano welcomes lovers who want to spend romantic moments in our Piazza Ducale, and everywhere in general.

Vigevano in love.

I particularly appreciate two things of this event :

– one of the slogans that invites the people of Vigevano to fall in love with their city, something that is urgently needed, given the sudden decline to which we are subjected

– the ‘testimonials’, namely Thomas O’Malley and Duchess from The Aristocats, whom I obviously love.

 

In addition, representing the romance of their crossed tails above the rooftops, Thomas O’Malley and Duchess in Vigevano also introduce International Cat Day, the 17th because Vigevano is also ‘The City of Cats’ along with Rome and Milan.

 

The protagonists of ‘The city of Cats’ are the Disney cats.

Do you remember all their names?

I will write their initials at the end, but I am sure you will have already guessed them before reading.

Did you celebrate Valentine’s Day and/or Cat  Day?

A colleague of mine brought some Baci Perugina to the office to sweeten an uphill Friday and discovered that the cards inside no longer bear the famous quotes. 

In their place is a QR code and the quote is viewable via mobile phone.

I know, I’m about to admit something apparently tragic: I’ve grown old, I’ll pass.

CATS

Alice in Wonderland = C.
Cinderella = L.
Mickey Mouse = P.
Donald Duck = T.
Pinocchio = F.
101 Dalmatians = T.

Who’s missing?

Yours is missing. What’s his name?

FARAWAY

FARAWAY

Feb 8, 2025 | BOOKS, BOOKS

I would like to thank Jessica Pini and Mari’s Manual for Faraway.

Faraway. 

We often repeat that reading takes us far away, in this case, the journey already starts with the title.

You know I never anticipate what one will discover when reading, so I ask you: what does your ‘far away’ correspond to?

A place?

Or a concept, perhaps: something far away from you.

You can create distance in space, in time, in the heart, in the mind.

Johann Wolfang Goethe left us this reflection:
One never goes so far as when one doesn’t know where one is going.

Do you agree?

I often remind of Shrek and the Kingdom of Far Far Away.

Faraway

Jessica also mentions Shrek but for a different reason, I still took it as a sign, a kind of affinity.

In particular, I appreciated the passages where the book dwells on the description of the environment with the attention of someone who cares about it.

Jessica then keeps the focus on female strength, declined in the variations in which it can make a difference.

She herself describes a good book as a bridge to other worlds and a way to live more than one life at the same time.

I will leave you one of her introductions by subscribing to it:

Jessica, on the other hand, has left me waiting to find out how the story will continue: her Faraway is meant to be the first chapter of a saga.

So let’s not stray too far, let’s keep in touch 😉
#FarawaySaga

Archives

Pin It on Pinterest