According to statements by De André within his posthumous autobiography "Una goccia di splendore" ["A drop of brightness"], released in 2011, his collaboration with Francesco De Gregori, which gave birth to four of the eight songs on the album, originated when De André saw his colleague live on stage in Rome and was very impressed.

Afterwards, he invited De Gregori to visit him in his rural house in Sardinia, where the two of them spent a month "getting drunk together and writing songs in the meantime."

All of the songs on the album marked a stylistic shift in De André's lyrics, which became more poetical, more complex and less immediate than anything he released earlier.

Reviewers at the time criticized the changes, and attributed them to the influence of De Gregori, who was known for writing stylized, not-readily-understandable lyrics which he was not always able to explain.

He would return to his usual storytelling style on his next album, Rimini, co-written with the Veronese folk songwriter Massimo Bubola.