Home · Songs · Banco del Mutuo Soccorso · La città sottile
Chords in progress
We have not analyzed this song audio yet. Once it is ready, you will see the chord player synced with the video.
From album
Io sono nato libero
Banco del Mutuo Soccorso · 1973 · Track 3
Details
If you like this, try
The story behind
This song is not a tranquil journey, but a nocturnal stroll through a city dissolving into shadows. The bass traces a melodic line that seems to float above time, while the keyboards paint landscapes that expand and contract as if breathing. There is something in its structure that doesn’t quite fit what one expects from Italian prog: it’s not just virtuosity for virtuosity’s sake, but a narrative that advances with calculated yet unstable steps, as if each note were a sigh amid the silence. The title, La città sottile, suggests something fragile, almost ephemeral, and the music confirms it: there is no solidity here, only layers of sound overlapping like strata of an abandoned city.
Recorded in 1973, this piece is part of Io sono nato libero, an album that sought not to sound like the others. The band, Banco del Mutuo Soccorso, had already spent years exploring sounds that blended the classical with the experimental, but here they took a further step: the lyrics, written by Francesco Di Giacomo and Vittorio Nocenzi, speak of something unnamed, as if the city in the title were a reflection of what the listener feels without being able to define. The length, just over seven minutes, is no accident: each section unfolds with a patience that defies modern impatience. In 2015, Rolling Stone magazine included it among the 50 best prog albums of all time, but at the time, that wasn’t their goal. They simply wanted the music to sound like what it was: a group from Rome playing for themselves, without concessions.