The day before you came - Abba

After a short break, Abba returned to the studio in the spring of 1982. The first results were deemed disappointing: the tracks 'Just like that' was never released (a snippet appeared on the box set Thank you for the music in 1994), 'I am the city' only made it out in 1993 on More Abba Gold and 'You owe me one' would become a B-side later in 1982. Concluding that a new full length album was not a realistic prospect for 1982, Polar Music decided instead to release a double-album compilation of ABBA’s most successful singles in autumn 1982, in which would be included some new recordings which could also be released as singles.

The group went back in the studio in August and recorded 'Cassandra' and 'Under attack'. Under the working title ‘Den lidande fågeln’ (‘The Suffering Bird’) they also started on what would become 'The day before you came'. The song was based on "a single melodic fragment that lent itself to being repeated in a series of ascending and descending phrases over several key changes", according to Benny. 

Björn wrote the lyrics at and following the session. His first task was to decide on a theme, and here he was inspired by the characteristics of the melody he and Benny had written: "The tune is narrative in itself, and relentless. That almost monotonous quality made me think of this girl who was living in a sort of gloominess and is now back in that same sense of gloom." His idea for a theme therefore was "a woman recounting all the dull, ordinary things she “guessed she must have done” the day before she had a highly charged encounter with a man" and began a relationship that would end unhappily: "He has left her, and her life has returned to how it ‘must have been’ before she met him.”

Many years after the song was recorded, Michael Tretow recalled Agnetha performing the lead vocals with dimmed lights and said that the mood had become sad and everybody in the studio knew that 'this was the end'. Although 'Under attack' would be released after 'The day before you came', this song certainly sounds like Abba's last great moment, and it remains one of my absolute favourite songs of the band. 

This edition is a picture disc released as part of a series accompanying the re-release of the album The Visitors in 2023.

My collection: 7" single no. 7310
Found: Sounds, Delft, 31 August 2024
Tracks: 'The day before you came' / 'Cassandra'