More ABBA Gold

This is IMO possibly a stronger collection of songs than "ABBA Gold". Voted "Head Over Heels", but it might as well have been "The Day Before You Came", "Under Attack", "Cassandra" or "Eagle". Even "I Am The City" was a great previously unreleased track that hinted at how the next ABBA album would have been great too had it ever been released.

"Summer Night City" - the way they edited the long intro so now you're just being run over by an orchestra and Benny's piano.

I like the full one with the long intro as well though - hello Lexicon Of Love...

"WALKING in the moonlight" of course.

"Summer Night City."

I agree with Geir about Head Over Heels, and this collection is essential, but More ABBA Gold isn't stronger than ABBA Gold, that's just silly.

Don't know most of these. I voted for The Visitors.

Honey, Honey

Swedish version is good too.

"The Day Before You Came"

"When All Is Said and Done". This just might be stronger than ABBA Gold, true.

"Angel Eyes" easy. ABBA Gold is probably more consistent but still nothing to write home about.

There's a lot of dreck here: "I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do," "So Long," "On and On and On;" "Honey Honey" is way minor ABBA; most of the ballads are shite comme d'hab, etc. But some great disco and new wave in there. "Head Over Heels" is a showstopping Broadway tune in search of a show (which many ABBA songs were but this more than others). "The Visitors" proves they could do subtle. "Lovelight" proves they could soar even when the gals were mangling their words. And I've long desired a country cover of "The Day Before You Came" (although I suppose the Dallas reference dates the song too much).

And "Bang-A-Boomerang" is still M.I.A.

"The Day Before You Came"

-- Alex in NYC

Alex speaks the truth.

"Head Over Heels" is a showstopping Broadway tune in search of a show (which many ABBA songs were but this more than others).

I would say those three last tracks on "The Album" are more obvious. I can hear the Broadway/Webber influence on "Head Over Heels" too, but at the same time, the song is also heavily influenced by the synthpop genre that was by then very trendy.

ABBA Gold was my intro to Abba, and I loved it, but I knew I was a fan for life when I heard "Head Over Heels". Musically, it's just so complex, such a great progression and vocal arrangement, but also being a great example of how this band could make music that was deceptively emotional, dramatic -- not even in a theatrical way per se (even tho they obv could be), but in a way that actually makes me feel like I imagine the characters in the song do. yay Abba

"The Day Before You Came" is so... flat! I mean, I like it, it's an interesting concept, but it seems like it works more as a songwriting exercise, like "The Word" by the Beatles, rather than the best song on this collection.

That wacky synthed OOOOH OOOOH noise all through the song is a bit annoying too.

'some chiese food to goo... OOOOH... OOOOH'

I would say those three last tracks on "The Album" are more obvious.

Yeah I can hear what you're saying. I guess then what I dig about "Head Over Heels" is that it works as new wave and Bway.

"The Word" by the Beatles

Except that "The Word" is hands down the best track on Rubber Soul and hence one of their best ever.

And "(flat) songwriting exercise" describes Bear Family loads of country...

I wouldn't even say that the Rubber Soul version is the best version of The Word (that would be the 13th Floor Elevators), much less the best track on that album, but opinions vary.

Adding, I get the conversational tone makes TDBYC a little countryish, and the level of songwriter craftsmanship/sophistication is comparable too, but it's also pretty aggressively undanceable, which to me is unlike most bear family country

I was using "Bear Family" as a unit of measurement (as in, "HUGE") rather than a musical description.

Oh, i took you to mean, like 50s through mid-60s country! anyway, back to the topic at hand.

If I had a second vote, it would go to Under Attack.

What gets me about "The Day Before You Came" is the drabness of it all. I see it from the point of view of someone who has just split up with her partner; who once lived a very humdrum lifestyle that suddenly had this period of excitement, that flipped her life upside down, and now is implicitly thinking "Well now that's over, back with the same old shit". The vacant, numb feeling of having been out of a relationship for only a short while. Once the storm has settled, there is nothing but you and your sad little life. It's morbid, hopeless, and utterly heartbreaking. And it goes without saying that it is genius too.

...or is that all very obvious? It took me a short while of listening to that track to really see what it was about. Surely one of their best songs in a song-writery way.

I have voted for "Under Attack". It destroys me. That little synth break kills me each time it kicks in, majestic and morose at the same time.

not completely obvious, but the video does back you up

after all the earlier videos, it's kind of shocking to see agnetha with a man who isn't björn

And it goes without saying that it is genius too.

yeah, it's smart, I just don't think it's all that great to listen to

It's one of their most haunting songs though, wouldn't you agree?

I voted for "The Day Before You Came". It's ominous. The man coming into her life is not a lover, he's an axe murderer, which is why it's so spooky. It's sung too fondly for me to think that it's a drab life having light shone upon it by the emergence of someone, but you could certainly think it - it's a nice happy existence being shattered. Love the quasi-operatics in the background too. Great video too.

When All is Said and Done vs. Winner Takes It All

I see the lyric in The Day Before as a narrator reflecting on her life before she met her true love - the day before, obviously. Let's take a look at those lyrics:

Must have left my house at eight, because I always do
My train, Im certain, left the station just when it was due
I must have read the morning paper going into town
And having gotten through the editorial, no doubt I must have frowned
I must have made my desk around a quarter after nine
With letters to be read, and heaps of papers waiting to be signed
I must have gone to lunch at half past twelve or so
The usual place, the usual bunch
And still on top of this Im pretty sure it must have rained
The day before you came

I must have lit my seventh cigarette at half past two
And at the time I never even noticed I was blue
I must have kept on dragging through the business of the day
Without really knowing anything, I hid a part of me away
At five I must have left, theres no exception to the rule
A matter of routine, Ive done it ever since I finished school
The train back home again
Undoubtedly I must have read the evening paper then
Oh yes, Im sure my life was well within its usual frame
The day before you came

Must have opened my front door at eight oclock or so
And stopped along the way to buy some chinese food to go
Im sure I had my dinner watching something on tv
Theres not, I think, a single episode of dallas that I didnt see
I must have gone to bed around a quarter after ten
I need a lot of sleep, and so I like to be in bed by then I must have read a while
The latest one by marilyn french or something in that style
Its funny, but I had no sense of living without aim
The day before you came

And turning out the light
I must have yawned and cuddled up for yet another night
And rattling on the roof I must have heard the sound of rain
The day before you came

The bolded bits have been bolded by me as they provide some clue to an unseen but happy relationship about to form - happy, because, on the narrator's reflection, she was unhappy before.

The ghostliness of the song, as a song and as a production(setting aside, perhaps, that rather annoying 'diddly-doo, diddly doo' keyboard figure that punctuates the spots between the vocal phrases) is the real masterstroke. It might have been tempting for a lesser artist to make the song move into a happy, major key at the phrase 'the day before you came', indicating a levitation in mood. I bet Stock, Aitken and Waterman would've done that. Instead, ABBA make this phrase the spookiest of all. And the track fades out on a very, very ominous and spooky progression. Why?

It's as if there is a kind of dark enlightenment falling upon the narrator (and I think the lyrics support this interpret5ation as clearly as does the melodic prgression). The narrator is spooked by her own failure to appreciate, back then, just how bleak and hellish her carefully timed, lonely life had become. She didn't realise it at the time. She realises it now: that's why she's spooked. Only now does she know how close to hell, to a life of desperate meaninglessness and depression, she had strayed. It was a near thing. No wonder she's spooked. She is also overcome with compassionate for the person she once was, bravely struggling through her empty days, one day at a time, clinging on to hollow routines. In retrospect, she sees she had become a ghost.

And to hell with my punctuation.

wow, moley.

That's the dominant reading though, Moley! And the video confirms it, because it plays to what the lyrics say at a denotative level. Connotatively, and in conjunction with the music, the spookiest bits are after the "day before you came" which leads me to think the thunderclouds are in the distance. The SAW trick you allude to that is not taken here would fit in with the surface reading. Or perhaps, the gloom is because the lover mentioned is nead cf Saint Etienne's "Like A Motorway".

is DEAD ffs

The lover is NED

Wow, it all makes sense now.

My God. No wonder they broke up shortly afterwards.

Or, given Abba's circumstances at the time, she's gone back to living a ghost of a life (see also possible thematic overlap with Frida's "I Know There's Something Going On" released the previous month).

Blancmange should be strung up Spartacus-style for (a) treating the song as a camp joke and (b) having a bigger hit in Britain with their version than Abba did.

Great analysis, Moley.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Surprise?

Well, I started this thread mainly to give people a chance to vote for "The Day Before You Came". And to vote for "Head Over Heels" myself :)

I honestly have no idea what I voted for.

I voted for Under Attack, but really that song ought to have been on the original ABBA Gold. Had that been the case, it would've been TDBYC al the way.

Wasn't TDBYC a bigger hit than "Under Attack"?