Anime salve is the final album released by Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 singer/songwriter Fabrizio De André

Fabrizio De André

Fabrizio De André was an Italian singer-songwriter.Known for his sympathies towards anarchism, libertarianism, and pacifism, he also was a convicted atheist , and his songs often featured marginalized and rebellious people, prostitutes and knaves, and attacked the Catholic Church...

 in 1996. It was written together with Ivano Fossati

Ivano Fossati

Ivano Alberto Fossati is an Italian pop singer-songwriter, guitarist, pianist, and percussionist born in Genoa. Fossati has several albums to date and has worked with such musicians as Fabrizio De André, Riccardo Tesi,Anna Oxa, Mia Martini, Ornella Vanoni, Francesco De Gregori and...

, who co-sings in "Anime salve" and " Â cúmba".

Overview

The album, released after six years of studies, shows marked influences of Latin-American music, as well as from Eastern Europe and Mediterranean ones (the latter deriving from the original project, which De André had begun with Mauro Pagani

Mauro Pagani

Mauro Pagani is an Italian musician and singer.Pagani was born in Chiari, Lombardy. A multi-instrumentalist, he made his debut in the music world in 1970 as violinist and founding member of the progressive rock band Premiata Forneria Marconi. In 1977 he left the band to follow a solo career, but...

). Most of the lyrics deal with the theme of solitude and diversity, often considered as positive, free state of life: the Brazilian transsexual immigrant ("Princesa"), the Roma people ("Khorakhanè"), the poor anchovy

European anchovy

The European anchovy is a forage fish somewhat related to the herring. Anchovies are placed in the family Engraulidae....

 fisher ("Le acciughe fanno il pallone"), the man in love ("Dolcenera"). The title itself, though generally translated as "Saved souls", ethimologically means "Solitary spirits".

The song "Disamistade" deals with a feud

Feud

A feud , referred to in more extreme cases as a blood feud, vendetta, faida, or private war, is a long-running argument or fight between parties—often groups of people, especially families or clans. Feuds begin because one party perceives itself to have been attacked, insulted or wronged by another...

 between two families in rural Sardinia

Sardinia

Sardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea . It is an autonomous region of Italy, and the nearest land masses are the French island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Tunisia and the Spanish Balearic Islands.The name Sardinia is from the pre-Roman noun *sard[],...

. "Smisurata preghiera" ("Endless prayer") is inspired to poems by Álvaro Mutis

Álvaro Mutis

Álvaro Mutis Jaramillo is a Colombian poet, novelist, and essayist and author of the compendium The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll.-Early life:...

, who later became De André's friend. Its verse "for the one who travels in a desperate and opposite direction, with his special mark of special desperation" resumes the entire album's poetical stance, as well as much of De Andrè's work.

Track listing

1. "Princesa" (4:52)
2. "Khorakhanè" (5:32)
3. "Anime salve" (5:52)
4. "Dolcenera" (4:59)
5. "Le acciughe fanno il pallone" (4:47)
6. "Disamistade" (5:13)
7. "Â cúmba" (4:03)
8. "Ho visto Nina volare" (3:58)
9. "Smisurata preghiera" (7:08)

All songs written by Fabrizio De André and Ivano Fossati.