Ive always loved this song but I don't think I've seen a single movie where the Ennio Morricone scores appear for the first time (that includes the Clint Eastwood westerns). So everytime I'd hear this simple song I'd get chills but not know anything about this Nicola and Bart.
I kept meaning to look into Nicola and Bart mainly thinking they were some fictional duo, but curious nonetheless. I finally remembered to look them up and their story is incredible and it makes the song even more powerful when you learn the context of the lyrics at the end:
"The last and final moment is yours/
That agony is your triumph"
First an excerpt from wiki on who they were and what happened:
"Nicola Sacco (pronounced [niˈkɔːla ˈsakko]; April 22, 1891 – August 23, 1927) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (pronounced [bartoloˈmɛːo vanˈtsetti, -ˈdzet-]; June 11, 1888 – August 23, 1927) were two Italian migrant anarchists who were controversially convicted of murdering a guard and a paymaster during the April 15, 1920, armed robbery of the Slater and Morrill Shoe Company in Braintree, Massachusetts, United States. Seven years later, they were electrocuted in the electric chair at Charlestown State Prison. Both men adhered to an anarchist movement."
"After a few hours' deliberation on July 14, 1921, the jury convicted Sacco and Vanzetti of first-degree murder and they were sentenced to death by the trial judge. Anti-Italianism and anti-immigrant bias were suspected as having heavily influenced the verdict. A series of appeals followed, funded largely by the private Sacco and Vanzetti Defense Committee. The appeals were based on recanted testimony, conflicting ballistics evidence, a prejudicial pretrial statement by the jury foreman, and a confession by an alleged participant in the robbery. All appeals were denied by trial judge Webster Thayer and also later denied by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. By 1926, the case had drawn worldwide attention."
"On August 23, 1977—the 50th anniversary of the executions—Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis issued a proclamation that Sacco and Vanzetti had been unfairly tried and convicted and that "any disgrace should be forever removed from their names".
The song is from the soundtrack of the movie Sacco and Vanzetti. The following quote attributed to Vanzetti while in prison months before his execution, adds context to the four lines of lyrics and elevates a nice sounding song into something powerful and heart-rending:
"If it had not been for these things, I might have lived out my life talking at street corners to scorning men. I might have died, unmarked, unknown, a failure. Now we are not a failure. This is our career and our triumph. Never in our full life we could have hoped to do such work for tolerance, for justice, for man's understanding of man as we now do by accident. Our words—our lives—our pains—nothing! The taking of our lives—lives of a good shoemaker and a poor fish peddler—all! That last moment belongs to us—that agony is our triumph."
Gives you chills.
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