Throw in the genuine sense of loss in Agnetha's voice, Frida's operatics, a moodily expressionist video and plaintive synths as omnipresent as the rain "rattling" on the roof, and The Day Before You Came carries a sense of foreboding almost unparalleled in pop music.
She is the perfect unreliable narrator: "I'm sure my life was well within its usual frame", she sings at one point, and we fear the reverse later she claims, "at the time I never noticed I was blue".įurther ambiguity is provided by her bedside reading matter: the feminist American author "Marilyn French, or something in that style". Throughout, the lyrics are oddly imprecise – every sentence begins with "I must have … " or "I'm pretty sure … " – and it's this vague recollective tone that gives her account a tinge of unreality, even fiction. Yet if we look closer, the song's meaning becomes harder to fathom. Finally, at quarter past ten, our world-weary protagonist collapses into bed insisting she has "no sense of living without aim". We are whisked through a sludge-grey morning commute, "heaps of papers waiting to be signed", and a rainy lunch at the "usual place" with "the usual bunch", followed by the slog home at 5pm with "Chinese food to go". Agnetha's first-person account of a day at the office, backlit by an almost unacknowledged depression, morphs into an unusually poignant parable of what modern life means. It's this ordinariness, this universality (ironic given the band's fame) that hooks the listener immediately. It combines a rising sense of melancholy, both in its melody and production, with wistful, nostalgic lyrics as it charts the ordinary life of a woman the day before the arrival of her lover. The Day Before You Came Staff Writers AugThe Day Before You Came is the debut novel from longtime gay press contributor and former writer Alistair Sutton, who describes it as, A celebration of Sydney and gay life in the 1980s. I would argue that, in keeping with the band's final album, The Visitors, the track's power lies in its layering of boredom and grandeur, transience and doom. Finishing her vocals, our heroine was to remove her headphones and walk solemnly out into the daylight, never to return.īut recording circumstances aside, what's so special about The Day Before You Came? Surely it can't compete with the transcendence of The Winner Takes It All? Rumour has it that the vocal was performed by Agnetha with the lights off, causing a whisper throughout the studio that this really was the end for the group. It could never be low-key." But while a recording might be fun (if, as Frida says, somewhat highly strung), how on earth could a pair of sixtysomethings top the enduring appeal of the band's underrated last track – six-minute epic The Day Before You Came?įor those who remain immune to Abba's charms or haven't heard the song (after all, it wasn't on Mamma Mia!) The Day Before You Came – like many a classic – was an inexplicable flop, peaking at No 32 in October 1982 during a prolonged period of decline for the band. "If we did, it would be hard to avoid all the pressure because of Abba. So the mighty female component of Abba are reportedly discussing working together again for the first time since 1983. "It would be great to do something with Agnetha," says Frida, now 65.
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