Paolo Giorgi

Official website


01-LILY ISLAND (click to view clip)
I’m on the go, the dawn is breaking for the world, but not for you.
Boats are floating, people slowly getting in with you.

The shell is free, the harbour lights are many eyes towards the sea.
Captain’s speaking, the child inside is proudly taking the steering wheel.
You were there, everywhere.

Hey, Man, sea and sand, you’re sailing again
Hey Man, distant land, I feel shaking your hands

Hey, Man, tears and sand, you’re sailing again,
Hey, Man, waving hands, can’t nearly understand

And you forever free roll in the open sea,
High and true, deep and blue through waves and dews
And you forever free rock in the open sea
High and true, deep and blue and forever you.
Words and music by Paolo Giorgi - © SIAE 2015

02-THE SPIRIT OF ST LOUIS
I’m a father, this is clear, still I’m asking “is this real”?
I would never have believed to feel a happiness so deep.
It is something like a week I’ve been losing all my sleep,
I’m acknowledging this fear it will last more than a year.

But when I see my big hands slowly brushing his tiny head

I feel like I am flying The Spirit of St Louis
Suddenly forgetting all the things I’m doing
And my eyes keep staring wide-awake and watch him like a painting of Monet

Sou papai ha' vinte dias, e não me caiu a ficha
E por conta do pimpolho, não me fecho mais o olho
E uma sensação estranha não dormir uma semana
Me falaram calma "mano" e seja forte por um ano.

But when I see his little hands gently touching my old forehead

I feel like I am flying The Spirit of S. Louis
Suddenly forgetting all the things I’m doing
And my eyes cannot fall asleep and watch him like a portrait of Magritte.

Words and music by Paolo Giorgi - © SIAE 2015

03-2:00 pm - THE THREE OF YOU (click to view clip)
In my heart I have three pictures set in different frames;
What I feel for each of them is clear.
Once your charming stare was lightning the life we chose to live
Like in a never-ending dream.

Then, you longed to feed the man you deeply wanted to be
And as a bird you needed to be free.
I felt myself forgotten, you broke my dreams apart
Nothing I could do to fix my heart.

Final frame: you waiting for your day to come,
Your charming stare was still the one.
Now, what I feel is you’ll be mine till end of time
Ever after living in my mind.

Words and music by Paolo Giorgi (inspired by the poetry “Tre di te” by A. M. Barcali) - © SIAE 2015

04-DEDICATED TO MONOTICS (click to listen)
We’re in the middle of a subliminal war providing us with balls and chains.
We daily suffer from misinformation storms they’re going to paralyse our brains.
I don’t believe we’ll get to heaven anymore, I don’t believe we’ll ever find
The way to celebrate the freedom of our soul, we’re losing space and wasting time.

The world is not what we’re receiving by the past;
It’s what we borrow from the future and so at last
It’s time to throw away the shame that we reject
If we want to learn the power of respect

I guess it is just a misleading plan
Guided by bunches of foolish men
Who sell out their words, poisons and black gold
And feed their starvation to guide the world.

Words and music by Paolo Giorgi - © SIAE 2015

05-WOODY STANZAS
Silence on the ground, yellow all around me,
My feet know the way among the old trees.
Feelings in the air nestled somewhere in my mind
Flyin' inside my brain with the sun shining over my head.

I'm going back to try and catch my old dreams
Wondering what about my future's ones,
I'm listening to the world living behind me
And looking for what whispered words will come.

The rocks are saying good-bye, the trees are all caressing me
Letting all their leaves turn around me,
And I would like to talk, but I don't know how to tell them
Thank you to remind me I'm living and loving my life.

So, I would like to be the highest mountain,
But I don't want to be the deepest sea.
I have to live my life just like a fountain
To shower everything with my dreams.

Words and music by Paolo Giorgi - © SIAE 1990

06-MATTER OF LIMITS
Hypothetical debates, new dimension curtains;
Facing problems everyday makes me feel uncertain.
Mental weaknesses to fight, low-profile conclusions;
Self convictions to defy or to justify illusions.

Then, crystal breaks, water slips away;
Cold shapeless lakes widen thru the plain.

Comprehensible mistakes, repetitions hated;
Antithetical behaviors make me feel impatient.
Sharpened arrows that collide breaking balanced powers;
Empty spaces waiting for old romantic showers.

And I need to pray, driving fears away,
To reach shady trees, open space to stay.

Words and music by Paolo Giorgi - © SIAE 1990

08-SECRET SHARE (click to listen)
Well, you got your time and I got mine.
Everything depends on where we are
Spending our lives being on time.
I’m thinking how we could have gone this far.

But if you got your time and I got mine
How can we relate the days we spend?
If distance means time and we step our own line
Will we ever face the same events?

Time is not the same for each of us,
Everyone’s reserved a secret share.
Time has a different face for each of us,
But in the end the heart is being there.

Words and music by Paolo Giorgi - © SIAE 2015

10-I DON’T KNOW HOW TO PLAY THE BLUES (click to listen)
I wrote this song, but I don’t know how to play the blues
I am singin’ along, but I don’t know how to play the blues
But please forgive me, I’ve always paid my dues.

If you really wanna help me teach me how to play the blues
Clap your hands and sing the rhythm of the blues.
But don’t get angry at me when I put my fingers out of tune.

I hate to lose, but I don’t succeed in playing the blues
I’m getting puzzled and confused when I pretend to play the blues

Well, be so kind, take your time, drink your beer and talk for a while

I’m getting puzzled and confused when I pretend to play the blues
And if you come next time don’t ask me to play a blues!

Words and music by Paolo Giorgi - © SIAE 2015

11-COME IN (click to listen)
Wake up, look around you, look at what the world has just prepared.
You live inside the high green trees and smell the ocean in the air.
And if you let come the wind around your hair
You can hear the words he's going to tell.

Hold on, what are you looking for? Don't always let the pouring rain become a storm.
I know the place where you should go to see the morning lights that glow,
Don't waste your time, just knock at my home,
A woodpecker will walk you to the floor!

But don't lock the door, let come the rain,
Birds, trees will run to make you remain.

And when you're thinkin' to be sad, when everything can turn you down and out.
Don't let the world fall in your head, just try to see the turning leaves
And come to me, just come to my bed
Made of every kind of young green trees.

Words and music by Paolo Giorgi - © SIAE 1990

12-WHERE DID OUR LOVE GO WRONG?
I am thinking of our love and move another thing above,
Our destiny was wandering like a dove, sailing.
And how could we make all those mistakes? And even call it wasted time,
Spent around in searching all silent seas, baby
And I'm sure: I didn't want to let you go.

And from a hole on the ceiling I'm looking through and through,
Thinking what to care about.
And like a child cries the thunder I'm feeling insecure
Every time I sing this kind of tunes.

I wonder: where did our love go wrong? I don't know how, but I still care.
Move on is just what I have to do, maybe.
But we both ain't ever know what's true, 'cause every time we try to talk about
We walk around the meaning of this song, ain't it?
And we slide on the things that we should do.

Words and music by Paolo Giorgi - © SIAE 1990

13-'ROUND AND 'ROUND
'Round and 'round my feelings roam, always with their pains.
I can't even find a stone to throw and stop the rain.

Blind and blind my blue days go through my empty brains
I know what I'm looking for, but I'm going insane.

So tell me where will my feet go, I don't really know;
Flowers grow and I can't blow my breeze.

My tree's going to dress in brown with his yellow leaves;
And maybe I am going to drawn into that killing sea.

But if I only got a slippery rope and I might lose the grip
I would try to climb and then watch the dawn of love again.

And I will let my feet go straight on down their road
Where flowers grow, there I will blow my breeze.

Words and music by Paolo Giorgi - © SIAE 1996

When and why

Lily Island The song is dedicated to Gianni and to the wonderful Lily Island. He was a great lover of sailing boats. With him I have had the chance to look at the island in a unique way from a corner of an uncontaminated sea in an autumn day with the sun that seemed to pave the way to his tenacity and his courage. The image of the Tirrenian Sea azure waters will always remain impressed in my mind as to remind me of so many moments spent with him.
The Spirit of St Louis Spirit of St Louis is a song written for my son Daniel. I found a tune based upon a samba and I wanted to write brilliant words to join the melody. I spent several nights awake to observe him, comparing the dimensions of his hands with my head and vice versa. I realised I was watching him as a portrait of Maigrette or a painting of Monet. I wanted to find a way to express my happiness and I compared it with Lindbergh’s happiness to see the European land during his first flight to Paris.
2pm - The three of you This song is composed by 2 different tunes. I had written two instrumental tunes in the years that did’t have an own identity. Every once in a while I played them between one song and another. Thanks to a poem (Tre di te) written by a dear friend who asked me to try and find a music for it, I succeeded in composing this patchwork starting and ending with a melody named 2:00 pm and in between the second melody, The three of you, finds his place. The song was born from this puzzle and would like to slowly diclose itself to the listener before getting him back to reality, as if in a walk at two o’clock in the afternoon.
Dedicated to Monotics Monotics is a follow-up of Hunger in the chest, song that was part of my cd The stage. The title is a joke to identify a new way to do politics that is thinking in one way only: one’s own. This is a song I wrote in a moment of anger against the world and against my country that doesn’t seem to react in order to gain credibility. During a vacation in Malta, I read a proverb of American Natives that says: We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children. The birth of my son Daniel put me in front of a terrible challenge: to justify the deterioration of this world in front of his eyes.
Woody stanzas Villa La Petraia in Firenze has always been a place of worship to me. The trees, the lakes, the panorama, the silence are the other side of real life that it is hardly perceivable from afar and that seems to belong to another world. My Grandmother lived in a small house at the entrance of the park so that I was lucky to have the chance to visit the park at anytime, even when visitors were not admitted. I wrote this song in November 1979, when I was still attending the University that was close to my Grandma’s home and I often took a walk in the park to relax myself. I had the clear perception of the Spirit that moves everything in the Universe.
Matter of limits I wrote this song in May 1988 when the record Exiles by Dan Fogelberg was just published. In a part of the album cover there is a broken glass with some red wine poured on a white table. I have always coupled this image with the moment in which I became aware I would have never met Marco again. Everytime I play this song I realise my limits as a human being that cannot give an explanation to some facts in one’s life. But in the ignorance of humility I accept a meaning for that, as the one in an abstract painting.
Bach to Brahms I wrote this one in 2013. Bach and Brahms are among my favourite composers. I owe a lot to some melody I have been listening to since I was a child, because they helped me understand the great power of music on the human soul. I hold dear Eine kleine Nachtmusik by Mozart, because my Primary school teacher asked us to paint something while listening to that, as to convert our feelings in a drawing. The Suite n. 3 in D Maj by Bach always recalls to me the Spirits that moves everything in the Universe. I recently fell in love with the 4rth movement of the Symphony n. 1 by Brahms for its romantic rapture. I wrote this tune after receiving a cd as a gift by a dear friend of mine, containing prestigious recordings of Bach and Brahms. I dedicated this song to him.
Daniel G. I started writing this song for my son in August 2013 and I recorded it a month before he was born. In the beginning of the song I tried to imagine what he could hear from inside his position, when I was playing the guitar. Therefore, in this part of the song I play the same notes in two different ways: the harmonics are what I imagined he could hear of notes I regularly played on the guitar neck. Afterwards I recorded the song and put it on an iPad. During the delivery, I played the song continuously, so that he was born listening to his own song.
I don’t know how to play the blues I like blues, but I am not so skilled in playing the blues. This is the reason why I wrote a song like this. I had the honor to play with talented artists that, differently from me, perfectly know how to play the blues. Therefore, I tried to find funny words to describe a scene as if I were on a stage playing a blues in front of an audience. I almost apologize for not being a bluesman and I suggest people to have a chat and drink a beer, in order to distract themsleves from my poor performance, before starting a new song, hopefully not another blues!
Come in This is a bucolic anthem dedicated to life, a sort of exhortation for everyone to enjoy what nature gave us, trying not to keep anything out of the door. Everything is part of one’s life, good and bad things. Technically speaking, the song is a finger picking exercise joined with cheerful lyrics in order to possibly convey optimism and will of life. Everytime I play and sing this song it works for me and I hope it may have the same effect for the listener, as a medicine to take at time of need. In case of unexpected depression give a listen to it: who knows…
Where did our love go wrong? After the fina scene of my first love, I tried to revisit it trying to identify the reasons of its failure. I did not succed in it but I began to understand that, in the beginning of every relationship, we receive signals, but we often ignore them. Then, to try and fix broken hearts is almost impossible, because we often slide on the same errors and we lose the right way to go. A love is its own history product and, if we are not capable to accept it, this is a continuous threaten to one’s life serenity. But I understood this a lot of time after. I wrote this song in May 1981 and its groove was inspired by a wonderful song by Stephen Bishop, Madge, contained in his record Careless.
‘Round and ‘round This is a song I wrote in December 1980, when my life was deeply changing. I was experiencing many failures in my life and I had to start againg with bowed head, due to many disillusionments. Therefore, on one hand I had my mind busy thinking about life and on the other hand I felt my feet longing to move forward, in some cases to run, even though they did not always know where to go. But I was feeling that I had to leave the floor to movement that, at some extent, is an antidote for depression. I did not know where I was going, but I was moving, putting considerations off to a future moment.