The word is Italian.
“Obligato” (Italian “obbligato”) is used in music notation to emphasize that a certain part is not optional. This is not to be confused with the Spanish “obligado,” although it actually carries much the same meaning: something essential, indispensable, but in a more general sense. Then there is the Portuguese, “obbrigado,” which is an expression of thanks—maybe in the way someone of my Dad’s generation would say, “Much obliged.”
But let me back up a bit.
I am reflecting on it here as the title of my most recent instrumental. I wasn’t thinking of any of the above when it came to me as a title. Honestly, it came into my head and I liked the sound of it. Then I realized from where and when, for me, the word had come: Before I went away to study music at university, I sang in the home church choir. Then, as I recall, it was used to refer to a part, an ornamentation, an embellishment, above the melody line. If so, that wasn’t exactly correct (as if it mattered then any more then than it does now). I just really liked the sound of the word as it came to me. It somehow suited the character of this new thing I had begun putting together.
Now I reflect on it as something more.
I can’t resist a no-doubt-inappropriate mashup of the meanings of the three words with two basic meanings: mandatory (obligato and obligado) and thanks (obbrigado), although I am wary of the potentially darker, even dangerous sense of “obliged” or “obligation” as implying a favour or debt owed (the cinematic world of John Wick comes to mind). And yet, there is something about the two basic meanings of the three words, together, that produces something meaningful, important even:
Obligato/Obligado: Not optional.
Obbrigado: Gratitude (untarnished by anything else).
We could use this mash-up meaning.
That is, we could use more of an active understanding that gratitude is not optional, and/yet is beautiful when it is not forced, or has anything darker attached to it.
For some in high places, some sense of obligation would be a refreshing change. There are those (there are exceptions) who live off the labours of the people and presume that they are obliged to no one for anything. Meanwhile, they offer nothing—except maybe lies.
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The song (an instrumental), Obligato:
YouTube:
Spotify: