The blend of Swedish talents that kept the young and old dancing on tenterhooks for decades...

Tribute to The Day before You Came by Bjorn Ulvaeus in the first 1982 ABBA version

The day before yesterday
You came together to play
To lift our hearts in joy
Belting out in convoy
The day after he came
We celebrate whose fame
You wailed through self-pity
But ne’er called it Beauty

‘Infinite suffering thing’
Would that Eliot could sing
Pre-dramatic event
Your breaking-up you meant
“Pretty sure it must have rained”
”…rattling on the roof” hearts stained
The day after he came
Most songs seem sound the same

“Knowing you Knowing me”
Never meant to be free
“…my life…its usual frame”
“…sense of living without aim”
Yes “Some one is crying”
No some one’s conniving
At noon must have left for lunch
“…usual place…usual bunch”

The sad journey on rails
Must break hearts crammed in jails
Due at eight in the morn
Back at eight all forlorn
“And turning out the light”
Curled safe in bed at night
For the day after he came
My life burned on a flame

The paradox of joy
Is that it makes one cry
‘Parting is such sweet sorrow’
Better still safe routine in tow
“…I hid a part of me…”
“…in heaps of papers” for fee
And let the world pass by
Not knowing what is joy

Is joy carpe diem
Was day before he came
Now my life’s over due
I’ve met my Waterloo
The train’s an ugly monster
Dragging its hind legs after
Frida’s howl pack of hounds
Benny's sound track train pounds

Anna’s swan tones lament
Bjorn’s lines uptight breasts rent
Beauty’s not only content
It’s also the way you vent
Conceit’s the ermine cloak
Rattling skeletons croak
Bjorn’s true lines exquisite poem
Sung in sweet pain What’s its name

Notes

Words within inverted commas are from the song.
Single quotes indicate other well-known words.

*Rhyme scheme: 4 stanzas (3 of ten lines with concluding quatrain) in rhymed couplets of varying syllabic count.
1st stanza: aabbccde ff
2nd stanza: aagghhii ff
3rd stanza: ddggiijj ff
4th stanza: kk ff
Not all in perfect rhyme: rain/came (for instance)
The syllabic count (more or less): 14 (with the exception of the 4th
line at 18 and eighth (exception: 1st stanza at 10) and tenth at 6.

© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2016