Damiano David, the singer of Måneskin, released his new songs Silverlines and Born with a Broken Heart a while ago. The subsequent announcement of his world tour, including his frequent appearances in the United States and English media, officially marked the beginning of his ambitious solo journey. Damiano shared his post-Måneskin life on Instagram with his girlfriend, like any other celebrity showing off their relationships justified by society, the model hot boyfriend and picture-perfect girlfriend, conventionally attractive and affluent, enjoying themselves in Europe and the privileges of an American Citizen. The Italian teenager succumbs to the English-speaking world like many others whose minds did not fit into the standardized Lingua Franca — a homogenous, standardized language that allows me to speak to you right now, established by the hegemony of a specific cultural sphere.
You see people grow old, want to settle down, it’s nothing surprising. I should not be surprised. Half of their first album Teatro d’Ira was in Italian, flaunting their artistic prowess through rage, rock, and rebellion. Even their song reflecting upon the passage of time, VENT’ANNI, was full of youthful optimism: to explain the meaning of color to those who only saw black and white. It was poetry; it was a group of teenagers dressed in sexually suggestive, gender-non-conforming outfits trying to leave their mark on the world. It was Damiano and Thomas kissing on stage in Poland and declaring how they believed that everyone should be able to do this without fear.
The utter irony in Damiano’s transformation is how he now chooses to carve his own identity for the world Måneskin once poked fun at in their songs like GOSSIP. The exotic Italian boyfriend for the perfect American princess in a Hollywood wonderland, with his native tongue that once dared to denounce the world, now just an interesting “perk” so desperately trying to distinguish itself amongst the “privileged” who were born into status and a dominant language. The spectacle-ification of a non-majority culture. The mouth that once announced their manifesto to the world — in casa mia non c’e Dio — becomes nothing more than the fantasy of the heterosexual world with the exotic lover, their stereotypical ti amo. Instead of ti voglio bene—for your friends, family, and your country.
Listening to Damiano’s new songs made me feel a deep fear of growing up for the first time. I’m afraid of the urge to settle down, to give up all that I once held to be true, and to fall back into the endless cycles that our ancestors once endured in silence. I’m afraid of a society that urges women to lean on impulsive decisions and stay in the household, which forces us to settle back to the norm. I fear that I may, someday in the future, lose the courage to stand up for the ones that I love, to put aside the part of myself that others call naivete because of my age. I fear myself, and thus I fear in vain.
Are queer rock stars born to die? Is the transience of youth the reason for its allure? I thought about the artistic movements and dreams crushed before they had the time to mature. I thought about brilliant minds who burn out before their 30s, spending the rest of their time living up to their beginning. Students whose lives ended just after they realized what they would die for. The stars that faded away into oblivion before their light was seen by anyone. The non-stop death of sparks in everyone’s mind, each holding the potential of materializing into a morbid monster or a miracle. Those who never had the chance to learn what it was like to live before time takes its toll…I thought of the infants who passed away at birth.
The ones who lived on became teenagers: bold and ambitious. The curves of their bodies do not yet show the sharp distinctions of sex; their voices are still rather homogeneous. They are first seen as people to be respected and connected with, instead of potential partners for sexual or romantic activity; they are governed by thoughts and not desires. They are humans coming of age, preparing to take on the responsibilities and rights of a citizen. They are teenagers, who still haven’t given up on the search for their utopia, who stretch their fingers out into the cold to grasp the glowing embers of justice and their own meaning of life. Eventually, that hand learns the comfort of their ancestral hut and prefers to stay inside.
We all gain inertia, eventually. Secluded, revolutionary groups in history settle into traditional empires, slipping and falling into their own tyranny, expanding into oblivion. It all dies away when age and society introduce yourself before you do. With the declining neuroplasticity and empiricism settling in, we no longer search for answers in new ideas but instead turn to the past. It’s how our ancestors learned to live — to specialize, to remember set patterns, so it will help us survive too, according to what we learned from our past.
I still love the poetic familiarity of Il Ballo dalla Vita and the remnants of their outright denouncement in Gasoline. I miss the times when I could take inspiration from their all-black outfits and thick eyeliner. I’ll banish my fear of the darkness (“Il Paura del Buio”) with their fierce drumbeats and guitar riffs, their voice nowhere appealing to the wider audience. I couldn’t play these songs in public or at karaoke because I’d be the only one singing along with my broken Italian, and looking back, it might have been a strategic choice to start writing in English. But old times are old times, and we must give people the space to grow, mature, and condense into the ones they need to be, albeit far from the ones they want to be.
