A Weird New Italian Musical Tribute to James Dean
Get a load of the press release to promote YTAM's new single, "James Dean."
On April 29, an Italian musician named YTAM released a new song titled “James Dean.” It is the latest entry in a list of music inspired by Dean dating back seven decades. He is one of, if not the most-named person in all of popular music.
The song is no great shakes, and I have never heard of YTAM, who has little social media following, but he releases music on the Columbia label. I mention the song here only because of the press release that accompanied its release. It made me laugh, and I wanted to share it with you in my translation from the original Italian:
After VAMPIRO, YTAM returns with JAMES DEAN, the new single to be released on April 29 by Columbia Records / Nigiri. James Dean, the “beautiful and damned” of world cinema, is the protagonist of the new single from YTAM. The singer-songwriter from Brescia identifies with the actor, a generational icon and universal symbol of living to the fullest without worrying about danger.
“Feeling invincible is a characteristic of your twenties, and the iconic figure of James Dean returns to life as the very emblem of being young by living to the fullest, completely unaware of the dangers of our daily life,” explains YTAM.
A flow of images and emotions follow one after the other, providing the backdrop for the need to feel free by traveling at high speed in a Ford Gran Torino, unaware that everything can end in an instant with a crash, whatever meaning and parable are hidden behind a life as fascinating as it is short. YTAM’s tendency to refer to cinema and pop culture returns in JAMES DEAN after the singles GBYE, in which Michael Jackson is the key figure, and VAMPIRO, a track that opens with a “bloodthirsty” Tarantino scene.
Don’t ask me what a Ford Gran Torino has to do with anything.
This post led me down to a rabbit hole of weird songs released to capitalize on the hysteria after Dean's death. "His name was Dean," "James Dean the Greatest of All" "The Ballad of James Dean" and "Jimmy Dean's First Christmas in Heaven." "Hymn for James Dean" "A Boy Named Jimmy Dean"
'His name was Dean" is such a freaking a weird and fascinating look at an attempt to paint Dean in an almost messianic glow.
I mean first you have the often-disheveled and unkempt James Dean who wore the same shirt for weeks on end while filming Giant without washing it as: "he was so young, so bright/so clean, and his name was Dean"-so it was clear that whoever wrote this song was simply thinking of how many words he could find that would rhyme with Dean.
But the song --accompanied by a choir-really goes off into a spiritual direction with references to angels carrying him away and passing through the Milky Way and the moon beams--"just to welcome Dean."
more references that combine both aspect of Dean's death with heavenly/religious allusions: blowing on the horn in the sky, and now a 'new star is born, the little rebel heard his call, now he'll be acting for us all in dreams'
But I wonder if another point of the song (apparently it was part of 'The James Dean Story' documentary) was to hammer on the fact that James Dean was dead-not recovering in a hospital or hiding out in the desert