The speed with which ABBA released ‘The Winner Takes It All’ was telling – just seven weeks between conception and release – suggesting that everything to do with the song had been part of a single sustained act of catharsis. And nowhere was that more apparent than in the lyrics themselves.
The opening line is the giveaway. I don’t wanna talk
When a song begins with those four words, you know the protagonist is going to do quite a lot of talking. About things we’ve gone through And now we know what she’s going to talk about. Even at the age of eleven, listening to the song for the first time in the car with my dad, I can dimly recall a sense that things were about to get messy.
The opening line is the giveaway. I don’t wanna talk
When a song begins with those four words, you know the protagonist is going to do quite a lot of talking. About things we’ve gone through And now we know what she’s going to talk about. Even at the age of eleven, listening to the song for the first time in the car with my dad, I can dimly recall a sense that things were about to get messy.
P. Paphides, Broken Greek (2020), kindle loc. 3,698
No comments:
Post a Comment