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And still I'm finding more masterpieces
Oct. 26th, 2011 05:22 pmI 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.
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.
