Three chords and a longing for the truth. Rock ‘n’ roll as a seeking for the infinite, from Simon and Garfunkel to Elvis Presley, from Leonard Cohen to Mumford and Sons and Coldplay. Concert of Rock Culture All-Star Orchestra.

 

What if, in the end, they were nothing more than songs, and Edoardo Bennato was right – a puppet without strings from the good old days?
Even worse, what if, by chance, those who are lovingly ironic about the sacredness unleashed by a 3½-minute bass guitar and drum piece, weren’t wrong?
Is it really senseless to search for echoes of the infinite in the lines of sheet music?
Actually, finding the links that exist between rock ‘n’ roll and the desire for truth is an extremely legitimate experiment, because a fact has been played and sung ever since rock was a newborn musical genre in the arms of blues and gospel. There is a little bit of everything, as far as subject matter goes, in the rock that looks out on the second century of its history in good shape. In a way that has Calvino’s characteristic levity, but is almost never banal, one can listen to fundamental questions of existence between the text and the staff, regarding the search for identity, neurosis and frustrations (“Jesus, Jesus help me / I’m alone in this world / And a [messed] up world it is, too” sing U2 in Wake Up Dead Man), even the mystery of the presence/absence of God in the world.
The final party of the Meeting 2012 is the ideal soundtrack for the exhibit curated by John Waters, “Three Chords and the Desire for Truth.” And it wouldn’t be blasphemous to enlist St. Augustine as a concert opener, since he affirmed that, intonation notwithstanding, “he who sings, prays twice.” It’s true: on the Meeting stage, as on the scratchy vinyl record players or the more modern CD players, resound not canonical prayers, but powerful ballads and seven-note staccato runs seasoned with hoarse and powerful voices, sometimes mellow, but, as a rule, always incisive. But what are songs like I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For, Sisters of Mercy, or Gotta Serve Somebody, if not the soundtrack that accompanies modern man’s yearning for the infinite? There is more than “spectacle” or “entertainment” in the sheet music of the 20th and 21st centuries. Who has not experienced evening as it descends harshly on the day, exhaustion, finitude, tears that run down one’s face? Man cannot live without a certainty about his destiny. It is possible for each of us, here and now, to stretch out like a bridge over the rough waters of life, as Simon and Garfunkel say in their masterpiece, Bridge Over Troubled Water. And in singing of the admirable Sisters of Mercy with Leonard Cohen, we lonely men have a choice, too: either we become saints, or we remain sinners.
(Paolo Guiducci)