Due anni dopo is the second album by Italian singer-songwriter Francesco Guccini

Francesco Guccini

Francesco Guccini is an Italian singer-songwriter, considered one of the most important Cantautori. During the five decades of his music career he has recorded 16 studio albums and collections, and 6 live albums. He is also a writer, having published autobiographic and noir novels, and a comics...

. It was released in 1970 by EMI

EMI

The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...

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Overview

The album was recorded in November 1969 in Milan. On the front cover the name of the author was simply "Francesco"; this already occurred in Guccini's first album, Folk beat n. 1

Folk beat n. 1

Folk beat n°1 is the first album of Italian singer-songwriter Francesco Guccini. It was published under the name "Francesco" alone.-The album:...

. Due anni dopo was the first album in which Guccini collaborated with Deborah Kooperman, an American folksinger who played fingerstyle guitar

Fingerstyle guitar

Fingerstyle guitar is the technique of playing the guitar by plucking the strings directly with the fingertips, fingernails, or picks attached to fingers, as opposed to flatpicking ....

, a style which was not well-known in Italy at the time. Her name was misspelled as Deborah Kopperman in the credits, where Giorgio Vacchi is listed as arranger

Arrangement

The American Federation of Musicians defines arranging as "the art of preparing and adapting an already written composition for presentation in other than its original form. An arrangement may include reharmonization, paraphrasing, and/or development of a composition, so that it fully represents...

, while Guccini is the author of all the songs in the album.
The main theme was the passage of time, and how bourgeois hypocrisy affects everyday life; notable influences were French music and the style of the Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi

Giacomo Leopardi

Giacomo Taldegardo Francesco di Sales Saverio Pietro Leopardi was an Italian poet, essayist, philosopher, and philologist...

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"Primavera di Praga" was a criticism of the 1968 Sovietic occupation of Czechoslovakia

Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia

On the night of 20–21 August 1968, the Soviet Union and her main satellite states in the Warsaw Pact – Bulgaria, the German Democratic Republic , Hungary and Poland – invaded the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic in order to halt Alexander Dubček's Prague Spring political liberalization...

, while the title track is about the years he spent in Modena

Modena

Modena is a city and comune on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy....

, in his teens. The two songs, along with "Vedi cara", became Guccini's classics.

Reception

The album was generally well received by critics. Allmusic says it was a "strong collection", while the Italian music website Ondarock states Due anni dopo had lyrics with clear "poetic and narrative connotations".

Track listing

Side A

1. "Lui e lei" – 3:12
2. "Primavera di Praga" – 3:38
3. "Giorno d'estate" – 3:47
4. "Il compleanno" – 3:31
5. "L'albero ed io" – 2:54
6. "Due anni dopo" – 3:43

Side B

1. "La verità" – 3:21
2. "Per quando è tardi" – 3:31
3. "Vedi cara" – 4:58
4. "Ophelia" – 2:26
5. "L'ubriaco" – 2:33
6. "Al trist" – 3:41