Uniquely for a De André release, eight of the album's eleven tracks are covers or translations; the final track, "Valzer per un amore" ["Waltz for a love"], is De Andre's vocal version of an instrumental waltz by composer Gino Marinuzzi, entitled "Valzer campestre" ["Country Waltz"].

According to De André's recollections, a 78-rpm record of the song was playing in his mother's house as he was being born.

In 1975, during his earliest live performances of "Via della Povertà", De André occasionally took advantage of the song's repetitive structure to replace three verses in the song (the fourth-to-last, third-to-last and second-to-last ones) with new verses, written by himself, focusing on political satire and completely unrelated to Dylan's lyrics or to the translation.

One such performance, from 28 November 1975 in Brescia Palasport, is featured as a hidden track at the end of the second CD from the 2012 box set I concerti ["The concerts"], a full compendium of De André's live activity.

In this performance, the new verses target Giorgio Almirante, Gianni Agnelli, Indro Montanelli (initially called "Montagnelli", then with his correct surname), Enrico Berlinguer and Pope Paul VI.