Despite the fact that I have always been a massive Abba fan I had never come across this song until I heard Meryl Streep sing it in the film of ‘Mamma Mia’ which we only bought as it was on special offer at Sainbury’s a couple of Christmases ago! Having heard Meryl’s version I found it on itunes and downloaded it.
Like many of Abba’s later songs this song has a real depth of emotion and anyone who has children will be able to identify with how quickly the time passes and how so many things pass you by as you go about your day to day lives. For me it only seems five minutes since my ten year old was born but ten years have passed and by the time our newest babe is her age she will be nineteen.
Another great thing about Abba’s writing is that, as English is not their first language, they sometimes tend to use expressions and phrasing which is not entirely natural but somehow manages to capture exactly the essence of a feeling or emotion. My favourite lines of this song are ‘What Happened to those wonderful adventures? The places I had planned for us to go? Well, some of that we did, but most we didn’t and why I just don’t know’. The actual lyric, while talking about a genuine sense of loss, is a little but ridiculous but as ever Abba manage to pull it off as only they can and manage to convey the genuine emotion and feeling of having missed out on something important in this song.
Agnetha Falkstog has a truly exceptional voice and is a truly wonderful singer. Despite the fact she hardly speaks English anymore and lives as a virtual recluse in Sweden she manages to communicate with the audience in this video in a way which lets us in to see her pain, emotion and sense of loss.
This is a truly great Abba song and one of my all time favourites…
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