The Visitors - ABBA

[Jim Colyer]

Posted: 12/14/12 at 10:51am

Someone's home is being invaded. This song has political overtones with its secret meetings and hope of freedom. I speculated endlessly before I learned the real inspiration behind this song. Of course, I thought the KGB may be after a defector as it might have come for the Russian player in Benny and Bjorn's CHESS musical. I thought it might have been a paranoid Elvis cracking up at Graceland, Napoleon at Waterloo or King Kong being abducted from his island. I imagined the visitors to be in-laws since my own had ransacked my house. It finally came out that the ABBA boys wrote this about the repression going on in Poland in the early 1980s. There was a resurgence of the Cold War at this time, and ABBA had gotten political. Not until the fall of the Berlin Wall did the Soviet Union loosen its grip on eastern Europe.

The lady in this song has been holding secret meetings in her home with dissidents. They have talked of overthrowing the puppet government. She knew she was in danger and expected (was even waiting for) the police to arrive at her door. They have come to arrest her. She panics. Her fickle friends have abandoned her. We look around her room to see the trappings of someone who might engage in underground activities. She is an intellectual. There are books and paintings and the furniture she loves so dearly. She stands frozen as the thought police take her into custody.

I contrasted the isolation of The Visitors with the gregariousness of ABBA's song Eagle. It is a 180 degree turn. The cover of The Visitors album shows the space that had grown between Agnetha, Benny, Bjorn and Frida. They are unaware of each other.
Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Visitors_(song)



THE VISITORS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1hK8CWlYcA

I hear the doorbell ring and suddenly the panic takes me
The sound so ominously tearing through the silence
I cannot move, I'm standing
Numb and frozen
Among the things I love so dearly
The books, the paintings and the furniture
Help me...

The signal's sounding once again as someone tries the doorknob
None of my friends would be so stupidly impatient
And they don't dare to come here
Anymore now
But how I loved our secret meetings
We talked and talked in quiet voices
Smiling...

Now I hear them moving, muffled noises coming through the door I feel I'm crackin' up
Voices growing louder, irritation building and I'm close to fainting Crackin' up
They must know by now I'm in here trembling, in a terror evergrowing Crackin' up
My whole world is falling, going crazy there is no escaping now
I'm crackin' up

These walls have witnessed all the anguish of humiliation
And seen the hope of freedom glow in shining faces
And now they've come to take me
Come to break me
And yet it isn't unexpected
I have been waiting for these visitors
Help me...

Now I hear them moving muffled noises coming through the door I feel I'm crackin' up
Voices growing louder, irritation building and I'm close to fainting Crackin' up
They must know by now I'm in here trembling, in a terror evergrowing Crackin' up
My whole world is falling, going crazy there is no escaping now
I'm crackin' up

Now I hear them moving muffled noises coming through the door I feel I'm crackin' up
Voices growing louder, irritation building and I'm close to fainting Crackin' up
(I have been waiting for these visitors)

They must know by now I'm in here trembling, in a terror evergrowing Crackin' up
(I have been waiting for these visitors)
My whole world is falling, going crazy there is no escaping now
I'm crackin' up
(I have been waiting for these visitors)

Now I hear them moving muffled noises coming through the door I feel I'm crackin' up
(I have been waiting for these visitors)
Voices growing louder, irritation building and I'm close to fainting Crackin' up
(I have been waiting for these visitors)

They must know by now I'm in here trembling, in a terror evergrowing Crackin' up
(I have been waiting for these visitors)
My whole world is falling, going crazy there is no escaping now
I'm crackin' up

Posted: 12/14/12 at 10:52am

No more f'king Abba!

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 12/14/12 at 11:53am

I love this album!! Jimmy C, what did you think of RuPaul's take on Under Attack? Brilliant, right?

[broadwayjim42]

Posted: 12/14/12 at 1:03pm

I consider myself pretty obsessive about ABBA, but ye gods...I've never looked that deeply into it. I've always thought "Soldiers" from the same album dealt with similar themes and at the time I thought "The Visitors" was literally about insanity. It is a very melancholy album.

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Posted: 12/14/12 at 1:30pm

STOP RUINING ABBA FOR ME!!

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 12/14/12 at 2:32pm

^^ I say just use it to talk about ABBA and ignore its original post.