And still I'm finding more masterpieces

[fpb]

I have been a fan of Abba since Waterloo, OK? I've written a songfic on their EAGLE, I've used their texts to review other people's work, I quote their lyrics without even noticing. And still I am discovering masterpieces - and I mean MASTERPIECES - that I knew nothing of, a quarter-century after they parted ways.

This is quite simply one of the greatest pop songs ever composed. Its musical structure is well beyond the usual stanza-stanza-chorus-stanza; it is almost a small symphonic movement, with a gorgeously worked-up-to series of climaxes. Its arrangement is incredibly elegant and appropriate. And at the centre of it is one of the finest vocal performances I have heard this side of Edith Piaf; indeed, the Mighty Sparrow is one of the few singers I can think of who could have done this song justice. Agnetha rises to the challenge like a great, white, soaring bird; she has never sang better, and, for that matter, never looked lovelier. I don't know about you, but I can't take my eyes off her for the whole duration of the clip. Even the red pseudo-mediaeval tabard she wears turns out to be both elegant and devastatingly becoming, though nothing could sound sillier if you described it in cold prose. And her control and lyricism are incredible; she works up to every climax in a way that makes tears spring to one's eyes. If you want anyone to know why Abba were so popular, show them this clip.

But all of this would not be so tremendous if the lyrical conception were not so brilliant. The lyrics could almost stand alone by themselves and be a great poem. Bjorn and Benny were the most underrated songwriting partnership in the history of popular music, and this is one of the most sophisticated, meaning-heavy, intensely lyrical songs they ever composed. The central couplet, "Oh yes, I'm sure my life was well within its usual frame/ The day before you came" is as charged with drama as anything any poet ever wrote. I still consider the Beatles the greatest group in history, but in some ways this is a song that the Beatles could not have composed: its maturity, the abyss of experience and memories behind its intensely controlled surface, is something that belongs to a deeper maturity than the four boy geniuses from Liverpool ever developed as long as they were together.

Comments

[un-crayon-rouge.livejournal.com]

I just listened to this for the first time a couple of days ago, and I had the same reaction: "Wow, I love ABBA and I know they are good, but WHAT IS THIS?"

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I have since found out that this was the very last song they ever released, which makes it even sadder - just think of the potential for further growth.

[blue-sky-day.livejournal.com]

They retired from the world stage, for the most part, but not from the music industry. They kept working, separately, but for the most part stayed in Sweden. If you're not familiar with any of their later solo work, you should be.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the information. As a matter of fact, I knew very well, at least, the musical Chess and some of Agnetha's solo songs. But in spite of their individual talent, neither Ani nor Agnetha had a really successful career after the group broke up; and I simply don't think that B&B produced as many songs, and as brilliant, as they did during their joint careers.

With ABBA as with the Beatles, the problem was with four vastly talented friends (with sentimental complications in both cases) who could not, in the long run, live together, but who were really necessary to each other to perform at their best. None of them were quite as good on their own as they had been together, in my view.