Antonello Venditti chose the Baths of Caracalla, in the Rome that has always cradled him, to celebrate the forty years of his famous song Night before exams. A choice that is anything but random, if only because the first of the three live shows in the capital falls on the evening of Tuesday 18 June, on the eve of the first test of the high school leaving exams. «I am one of the lucky ones who has always carried his story with him, my songs are still contemporary, timeless», says the singer-songwriter in backstage, shortly before going on stage for the concert. «I am the anthem of Roma and I have written songs that will remain forever. In fact, in a few years, they will forget about me and the songs that will become by an “anonymous Roman” will remain”, adds Venditti.
The meeting with Dalla at the service station and the return to Rome
On the stage of the ancient baths, the singer-songwriter brings the songs of Heartthe album from which it is taken Night before exams and which marked a fundamental stage in his career. «It’s the album of my return to Rome, after two years in Brianza, of anguish, of wanting to end it all», reveals Venditti. Once he arrived in the capital, however, there was no longer a trace of all this. «Rome cradled me, it counteracted the darkness I was experiencing and which no longer existed in my life. It was my drug, and it helped me not to take drugs”, he explains. What convinced him to return to his city, which he had left after his separation from Simona Izzo, was a meeting with Lucio Dalla in a motorway restaurant: «There I understood the extreme value of friendship, which has no boundaries, has no sex, has no political or economic division. Love is an imperfect friendship, because in some cases it is extreme selfishness and reaches the point of violence, femicide.”
The night before Antonello Venditti’s exams
With 47 albums under his belt, Antonello Venditti has no doubts about what his favorite song is: Sister Rosa. «I was 13-14 years old when I wrote it. I would have been happy to just write that, everything was already there”, explains the singer-songwriter. Then of course there is Night before exams, which on the occasion of the first concert at the Baths of Caracalla takes on an even more special flavour. «Night before exams it’s a dream, something visionary. It is a hymn not for those who have been, but for those who will be. I don’t remember much about the night before my written exams, but I do remember the night of the oral exams: a friend of mine and I went on a motorbike to Florence. We returned just in time for the opening of the school door”, recalls Venditti.
The relationship with politics
Before going on stage, there is room for one last chapter: politics. A topic on which Venditti prefers to gloss over “because every little word today is political and is more noticeable than a good word”. Satire, explains the singer-songwriter, «has never been appreciated by politicians, they have always considered it unbearable, and therefore it is a good means of expressing oneself. I have never had friends.” However, there is someone that Venditti feels like saving: «The real revolutionaries were Berlinguer on one side and Moro on the other, who really wanted to change things. True revolutionaries risk and lose their lives. But we must not give up our rights, such as abortion. It is our conscience that decides.”
On the cover: Antonello Venditti during the presentation of the initiatives for «Notte Prima degli Esami 1984-2024» at the Ministry of Culture, Rome, 7 May 2024 (ANSA/Ettore Ferrari)
