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I wanted the songs I’ve written over the last year or so to be like fragments of an imagined genealogy, somewhere between fact and fiction. Listening in to the echoes of the past we carry in our blood, I wanted to try and give them voice again. Anima is the song of my imagined ancestry. The story goes that on the Italian side of my family, we originally come from Fez in Morocco via Sicily, before ending up further north on the mainland. Like so many of us in Europe, my own genealogy and story are mirrored in the diversity of the region’s rich history. If the average European examined his DNA and genealogy, I’m sure he or she would find traces of half the world’s people mingling in his or her veins: descendants of people who, perhaps more than a thousand years ago, may have practiced any one of the three monotheistic religions and who may have come from as diverse places as today’s Syria, Iraq, Sweden, Greece, Turkey, Germany, Morocco, France, Tunisia or Palestine to name but a few.
In the choruses of the song, I sing words in Palermitano the Sicilian dialect of Palermo that were written for me by Fabrizio Cammarata and Anima is one of the many songs on the album where I’ve tried to play with the blend of languages in the way one might combine instruments, to alternate colour and tone as well as meaning.
lyrics
I keep remembering can't forget
I keep remembering can't forget
Of all the memories I should keep
And with regret I slowly weep
I keep on thinking I can't stop
I keep on thinking I can't stop
December daydreams in the cold
You could have stayed here growing old
Anima anima anima
Chi mi porti ri ddà?
Ìsti luntanu p’ammunziddare
Tutt’i ricordi ca 'un vosi taliare
Ìsti p’un mari ca 'un fa turnari
‘Ncap’a na varca ca 'un vosi cchiù stare
I must remember I can't let go
I must remember I can't let go
And reverie holds me for a while
Brings back the colour of his smile
Anima anima anima
Chi mi porti ri ddà?
Anima anima anima
Chi ti porti ri ccà?
Ìsti luntanu senz’aspittare
Sulu l’amuri lassasti ca u sientu
L’ossa luntane scrusciu ‘unn’e fannu
Ma si l’ascuti addiventanu cantu
E quannu nni viremu ddà
Nn’avemu cos’i cuntarini
Vìu r’u to viaggio l’anima
Vìu li to occhi e mai n’addio
credits
from I Dreamed An Island,
released October 24, 2016
Piers Faccini: voice, acoustic and electric guitars, bowed guitar, harmonium
Luca Tarantino: baroque guitar, theorbo
Simone Prattico: drums, percussion, acoustic guitar