Baker Street (down on Memory lane) _English Version

So, why Baker Street?

Because this morning, as I was trying to find a valid reason to wander around London in peace next week (when I’ll be there with the team and the kids), like a needle turning inside a haystack (London is immense, and in the end, it usually comes down to unleashing ourselves into the same old globalized haunts full of frantic shopping or junk food… which, personally, I could do without), I started looking for a good reason that could turn into an actual interesting destination.
Since my shift will end at 3 p.m., I’ll have some free time to spend ad libitum.

And as I was mulling it over, there it was — Baker Street by Gerry Rafferty started playing on the canteen radio, very faintly, but it hit me right in the center.

And I haven’t been able to get it out of my head since.

So, Baker Street — which I invite you to listen to (ideally, open the video and keep reading with it as a soundtrack) — is more than just a trip into the past for me. It’s a plunge backward into the hopes and dreams of my early adolescence, when I was a sort of start-up just taking its first steps into the world of communication.
Now, I’m not writing this piece to take stock of life or anything — just to say a few words about this brilliant Rafferty, who’s long gone and not nearly remembered enough.

Back then, my classmates were starting to fly off to England (I stayed in San Marino with my parents). I honestly couldn’t have cared less about the Brits — and the language that later became one of my few but powerful allies? Even less.
I loved the French of Paul et Virginie. Not that I spoke it at any notable level, but I imagined those two young lovers whispering magical, beautiful words to each other as they rolled on the vast beaches of Martinique.

That, to me, was the kind of love worth chasing.
That was the language.

But it was also the year of Donna Summer, Boney M, and Belle Epoque — which I listened to and danced to in front of the mirror, staging my own private disco-ring. I used to mimic Stefania Rotolo and was already destined to never quite balance the future books of love (investments and returns always way off — sigh), mouthing along to lyrics that made no sense whatsoever.

But Baker Street — I understood that. Oh yes, I understood that.
Because some music reaches your brain and your heart by skipping all the usual logical-cognitive pathways. It just gets there.

Now that I’m older, and I switch between two languages, I go back and chew on the bones of that song, savoring every last shred of meaning