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Original poster

Best/saddest ABBA songs

126 replies

Redyellowpink · 07/09/2021 19:41

Help me out. I've always liked ABBA but had only ever listened to ABBA gold, so all the cheesy classics.

Today I listened to The Day Before You Came and it blew my mind. I'm looking for some recommendations of other great, lesser known ABBA songs that are similarly emotional, beautiful, melancholic...

Thanks in advance

OP posts:
myverylastnerve · 07/09/2021 21:08

The Day Before You Came as it makes me think of what I was doing the day before I got the call to say we had been approved for adoption and my DD was on her way Smile

Alphavilla · 07/09/2021 21:08

I always loved Eagle, much underrated Abba song. The Day before you came and Winner Takes it All are very emotional and can make me cry. My mum's favourite was I Believe in Angels so whenever I hear that it makes me cry for the loss of her.

LoveFall · 07/09/2021 21:09

Our Last Summer

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Music
Wishimaywishimight · 07/09/2021 21:09

@StellaOlivetti - my absolute favourite!

Jenster03 · 07/09/2021 21:10

Surprised 'i've been waiting for you' hasn't been mentioned.

Alphavilla · 07/09/2021 21:10

Sorry I guess that song is called I have a dream 😂 sorry mum!

toomuchlaundry · 07/09/2021 21:12

Slipping Through My fingers and My Love, My Life always result in tears, and I have a son not daughter. Saw Mamma Mia 2 just after DF died, it was not pretty when they started singing My Love, My Life

3luckystars · 07/09/2021 21:16

@Rufus27 thank you for that beautiful story and beautiful song.

Original poster
Redyellowpink · 07/09/2021 21:17

@myverylastnerve that's lovely!

I'm creating a playlist these are all so good

OP posts:
Chunkymenrock · 07/09/2021 21:17

Eagle is utterly, utterly brilliant.

theliverpoolone · 07/09/2021 21:18

Thank you for the music.

PepsiHoover · 07/09/2021 21:19

I love the Day Before You Came. It's so sad, but optimistic because things obviously got better I'm presuming.

I've always loved Super Trouper but I didn't realise until recently it was written about missing their kids. Which does make me feel quite emotional now as a mum who kisses her kids when they're not here. So much of their later stuff is so sad. Especially when you think they are singing songs written by their exes about them.

GlitchStitch · 07/09/2021 21:21

Name of the Game is my favourite, also love SOS and Super Trouper.

toomuchlaundry · 07/09/2021 21:23

DH and DS are out of the house tomorrow, I feel an Abba songfest coming on

Ironicpentameter · 07/09/2021 21:23

@Rufus27 - that is an absolutely beautiful story and song for your DF’s funeral. I haven’t heard that song for about 45 years & am listening with a tear in my eye for you, your DF and DS dancing around to it. ABBA songs are so, so clever musically.

ChardonnaysPetDragon · 07/09/2021 21:24

Has anyone mentioned Like an Angel Passing Through?

Comefromaway · 07/09/2021 21:24

The Winner Takes it All

ElvisPresleyHadABaby · 07/09/2021 21:26

God, Slipping Through My Fingers makes me want to properly howl cry. My own DM died a few years ago and I have a teenage DD of my own, thinking of how she thought of me and how I feel about my DD is heartbreaking. I wish I could pay her back for those teenagers years where I treated her like shit.

Bizjustgotreal · 07/09/2021 21:28

Angel Eyes.

CantStartaFireWithoutaSpark · 07/09/2021 21:32

Does you Mother know.

So much fun, I dance around the kitchen with my DD to it

PepsiHoover · 07/09/2021 21:34

@Bizjustgotreal

Angel Eyes.
Aw, I love this one too. I proper love their kind of disco inspired stage. Grin
MrsDThomas · 07/09/2021 21:36

My mum was a huge fan of ABBA and passed it down to me, and now my girls love them.

Every time I hear an ABBA song i think of her. Slipping through my fingers always makes me cry.

Absolutely no need to be angry (whoever it was on page 1) you don’t like the song, fine, but to a lot it makes them emotional.

So get off that horse

bearlyactive · 07/09/2021 21:37

@CatNamedEaster

The Day Before You Came is my favourite of theirs. I heard someone (might have been Hazel Dean?) on Graham Norton's Radio 2 show talking about the story behind the song. She said there's one story that it's based on the life of someone in East Germany or Russia (can't remember) who was betrayed to the police so it's their recollection of the day before they were picked up. Might be a load of made up crap but it made the song feel even sadder and more ominous to me than it had before.
I heard a similar thing, but for The Visitors. "But how I loved our secret meetings/We talked and talked in quiet voices" ... "I have been waiting for these visitors/Help me" etc.

In terms of sad songs, Hasta Manana is upbeat but has fairly sad lyrics. "Where is the spring and the summer/That once was yours and mine/Where did it go?/I just don't know". Also can't believe nobody's mentioned Disillusion - v. sad - "They say my wound will heal and only leave a scar/But then they never shared our love". Also One Man, One Woman. And Under Attack - again, upbeat, but sad lyrics and if you watch the video you can see that it was the end for ABBA as they were then.

All my ABBA research has come to something useful at last Grin

Mumsgirls · 07/09/2021 21:39

Odd one out here . Was teenage when they got famous. I was into soul, other teens into heavy metal. ABBA were a parents group and definitely not cool. Been a lot of history re-written about them. No self respecting teen would have been into such a mainstream pop group. That’s my memory anyway

Diverseopinions · 07/09/2021 21:40

Eagle is the best ABBA song, and The Day Before You Came is very good.

As a pop song, Waterloo was very brilliant with its key shifts.
Knowing You Knowing Me has sadness and musicality.
There is an absolutely awful one called Happy New Year.

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