ABBA Randomness

The Day Before You Came

Yes, I'm dedicating an entire chapter to this song. Why? Because it's so gosh dang ✨amazing!✨
Like, I don't even know where to start!

The instrumental? Incredible. The lyrics? Immaculate. The vibe? ✨immaculate✨

See, if you just look at the lyrics, without the music and everything, it seems like the "look how bland my life was before you came💕" type of song. BUT, when you take a look at the lines:
Oh yes, I'm sure my life was well within its usual frame
The day before you came
And add the whole instrumentation, you get the feeling that the person coming into this woman's life wasn't a good thing.
Then again, the rest of the entire song seems positive. Lyrics = positive. Music = negative. It's usually the opposite with ABBA, but I like the change!

What I adore here is that you cannot figure out if it's a positive or a negative song. And that leaves you with a sense of tension, confusion, mystery and unease. It's a song that no one knows the meaning to, and that whole state of haunting confusion makes this song so different from other ABBA songs. It makes you long to know the answer, which no one has!

We're getting quite philosophical, huh? Well, that's just what this song does. It makes you wanna look for the God forsaken meaning of it even if it takes your everything to do so.

But, as I said, no one knows. Even Benny and Björn said that they cannot decide whether it's a happy song with sad music or another one of their haunting songs off The Visitors. It's uniqueness makes it different from the rest of ABBA's entire discography!

Sometimes it has crossed my mind that the alleged "you" in this song isn't even a person. It might be an important event from the woman's life. Maybe what she's singing about is depression, or poverty. Or anything of that sudden downhill type. It would make sense with the lyric bits that I mentioned earlier, now that I think of it. The woman in this song could be describing how her life was doing completely well and fine until this sudden thing happened and it all went to sh1t.

But, I'll give you the lyrics here, and maybe you can make your own takes on the meaning of the whole song!

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

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

(can you tell that analysing songs is a daily hobby for me? i always have a fun fact at the dinner table
also sorry if me being so philosophical is boring af, but it's random so ig it fits the book lol)