Storia di un Impiegato is Fabrizio De Andr?'s fourth and last concept album, and as such it closes an essential period of his career. In many ways a transition album, De Andr? himself acknowledged that it failed to reach the heights of his previous two masterpieces La Buona Novella and Non al Denaro non All'Amore N? al Cielo. As its title proclaims, Storia di un Impiegato tells the story of a nameless, ordinary clerk whose political conscience is awakened while listening to a five-year-old French song from May 1968. The clerk realizes that all his life he has been a conformist, selfish, non-entity, and decides it is high time to join the fray. After a series of bizarre delusional nightmares, he attempts to blow up the Parliament, fails ludicrously, and ends up in jail. Ironically, once a prisoner, he finally achieves his dream of becoming part of a collective. The most overtly political of De Andr?'s albums, it was released at a time of exacerbated internal turmoil in Italy, torn by terrorism and state repression, as well as economic crisis and generational conflict. Almost inevitably in such a charged atmosphere, the album's concept and recording were marred by dissent between De Andr? and his collaborators, writer Giuseppe Bentivoglio, producer Roberto Dan?, and composer Nicola Piovani, over the general direction the project should follow.