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Samuel’s Musicians Of The Week: ABBA

January 20th, 2013 at 04:36am

This is not the first time ABBA have won this award, and it would probably have been quite remiss of me to overlook them for this long if it was, however it has been over six years since they last won it so I think it is a reasonable point in time to give them another award. That said (I shudder to think how many times I have used the phrase “that said” on this blog, I was not planning to give them the award this week as I did have someone else in mind, but I came across an ABBA song with which I was not familiar the other day and it caused me to change my plans.

To provide the context of the story, I have a very small hobby radio station at home which primarily runs talk programming relayed from other sources. In many ways it could be described as a glorified webstream player with some stream-delaying features so that overlapping programming can be played at different times. It generally runs a mixture of conservative Australian and American talk programs, although a few other things are in the lineup as well with the addition of a bit of music now and then. The music, apart from being part of the standard programming, serves as filler content in case something goes wrong such as a webstream dropping out. In the early hours of Friday morning a delayed program was airing which, due to a problem with the recording, underran by a few minutes. Two songs were used to fill-out the hour until the top-of-hour news with one of them only airing for about fifteen seconds. I didn’t recognise this song (some of the music came from my own collection while other bits came from my parents’ CD collection) but it did grab my attention.

The snippet of the song which I heard seemed to be a song with a foreign accent and heavily synthesised instrumental backing. I had no idea what it was and so when I had time, I had a look back over the logs and felt incredibly silly for not recognising what should be the highly recognisable voice of Agnetha Fältskog.

The song, which by now I would think some of you know exactly what it is, was ABBA’s final song to be recorded but, peculiarly, not their final song to be released. The song, which of course is the feature song for this week, is “The Day Before You Came”. How I have managed to not hear this song before you is beyond me, although I suppose it does lend some theoretical credibility to my bizarre theory that, if life as we know it is a television program or some other form of simulation, then songs which have allegedly been around for years and yet have only just recently come to my attention, might actually be new releases out in the world where this life is being monitored.

On that note, considering that it is 4:35am and I am tired, rambling, and for some reason posting a Musicians Of The Week award in the morning rather than the evening, I will cease my long-winded preamble and leave you with a fantastic and intriguing song.

I Must have left my house at eight, because I always do
My train, I’m 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 I’m 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, there’s no exception to the rule
A matter of routine, I’ve done it ever since I finished school
The train back home again
Undoubtedly I must have read the evening paper then
Oh yes, I’m sure my life was well within it’s usual frame
The day before you came

(Haunting operatic interlude)

I Must have opened my front door at eight o’clock or so
And stopped along the way to buy some chinese food to go
I’m sure I had my dinner watching something on TV
There’s not, I think, a single episode of Dallas that I didn’t 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
It’s 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

(Haunting operatic interlude)

Samuel

Entry Filed under: The Sunday Share

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