I bambini di poi

Song Meaning

The lyrics paint a surreal, almost dreamlike landscape where familiar figures and places are distorted, creating a sense of disorientation. We see a blind man running into the wind, a tourist in a wheelchair trying to buy a non-existent view, and historical figures like the Sun King and Nostradamus appearing in fragmented, anachronistic scenes. This initial imagery establishes a world where reality is fluid and expectations are subverted, setting a tone of melancholic absurdity. The central tension seems to lie in the contrast between grand historical narratives or archetypes of "heroes" and the mundane, often futile, actions of individuals. The "heroes" are presented with a shrug, "Vedi un po' tu come sono gli eroi" (Look at you, how heroes are), suggesting their grandeur is illusory or perhaps even pathetic. This is immediately juxtaposed with the profound realization that "i bambini di poi siamo noi" (the children of later are us), implying a shared, perhaps diminished, fate or legacy. The recurring image of snow on the lagoon and wine flooding the "void of Bauhaus" in the second verse continues this theme of grand cultural touchstones being overwhelmed or rendered empty by a pervasive, unspecific melancholy. The specific references, from Sorrento to Versailles to Bauhaus, feel less like historical markers and more like scattered fragments of a broken tapestry. The lyrics suggest that these grand pronouncements and historical moments ultimately lead to a shared, uncertain future represented by "the children of later." This juxtaposition of the epic and the absurd, the historical and the personal, is what gives the lyrics their peculiar resonance. The narrator invites us to see the flawed, often comical, nature of supposed greatness and then to recognize ourselves within that same flawed, uncertain continuum. It’s a reflection on how history and individual lives, despite their perceived differences, might converge into a shared, somewhat bewildered, present.