La buona novella

Fabrizio de André is my favorite italian composer and singer. In this fragment of "The Good News", an album he made in 1970, he has one of the thieves crucified with Jesus talk about the 10 commandments.

"You will not have other gods beside me"
has often made me think:
others, from the east,
said that it didn't make any difference.

They believed in someone else
and they didn't hurt me.
They believed in someone else
and they didn't hurt me.

"Do not use the name of the Lord,
do not use it in vain."
With a knife stuck on my side
i screamed my suffering and his name:

but maybe he was tired, maybe too busy,
and he didn't hear my pain.
But maybe he was tired, maybe too far away,
i really did it in vain.

"Honour your father, honour your mother
and honour their staffs, too."
Kiss the hand that broke your nose
because you were asking for food:

When my father's heart stopped
i didn't feel pain.
When my father's heart stopped
i didn't feel pain.

"Remember to sanctify the holidays."
It's easy, for us thieves,
to go into the temples that vomit psalms
of slaves and their masters

without ending up tied up to the altars,
our necks slit, like animals.
Without ending up tied up to the altars,
our necks slit, like animals.

The fifth says "You must not steel"
and perhaps i've respected it
by emptying in silence the swollen pockets
of those who had stolen:

but i, lawless, stole in my name;
they did it in the name of God.
But i, lawless, stole in my name;
they did it in the name of God.

"Do not commit impure acts"
that is to say, don't waste your seed.
Make a woman pregnant every time you love her
and thus you'll be a man of faith:

then lust is gone, and the child remains
and many are killed by hunger.
Maybe i've mistaken pleasure for love
but i haven't created pain.

The seventh says "do not kill
if you want to be worthy of heaven."
Look at this law of God, today,
three times nailed to a cross:

look at the death of this nazarene
and still, not a thieve less dies.
Look at the death of this nazarene
and still, not a thieve less dies.

"Do not raise false testimony"
and help them kill a man.
They know divine law by heart
and always forget forgiveness:

i have denied God and my honour
and no, i don't feel pain.
I have denied God and my honour
and no, i don't feel pain.

"Do not covet what belongs to others,
do not covet their wife."
Say that to them, ask those few
that have a woman and something:

in other's beds, warm with love,
i didn't feel pain.
Yesterday's envy is not over:
tonight i envy your life.

But now that night and darkness come
they take the pain away from my eyes
and the sun glides beyond the dunes
to rape other nights:

in seeing this man, dying
i feel pain, mother.
In compassion that doesn't give in to resentment
i have learned love, mother.

(For the italian original, you can go to http://www.frascolla.org/FDA/t04.htm ).