Talk:The Day Before You Came

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BetacommandBot (talk) 20:13, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

The song "plot"
From the article: (I added the numbers) "The song minutely details the story of a lonely ordinary office girl's life right before she either (1) met her loved one or (2) met a loved one with whom she'd previously split ((3) another interpretation is before she died)". I would say it's (1). How would anyone understand it's (2) or (3)? 77.126.27.3 (talk) 18:56, 30 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Definitely agree there, but I still take issue with "but now she is living a much more interesting life". If we are going to say that she is still together with the one that Came, we really need a source for that. I would certainly have assumed from the desperation in how the song actually sounds, that this is sung by someone suddenly in painful need to find her way back to the Day Before, so as to avoid "living without aim". (Of course, seeing that it was the last ABBA song recorded, it could conceivably also be considered an allegory for how the four have to adapt to living without ABBA.) 85.226.205.124 (talk) 09:36, 4 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I think the song is about her suicide. The video suggests that her life with him was happy but fleeting - perhaps he was taken from her (also emphasised in the video). She realises she can't bear to go back to her former life and thus ends her life as she reflects. Benny and Bjorn have both said that the clue is in the song's sound (ie - the spiritual harmonies at the end and the narrator is silent for the final minute of the song). I'm surprised that none of the interpretations given have picked up on this. Obviously my slant can't be included, but maybe in the future some author will see this side to it.Tuzapicabit (talk) 14:10, 14 April 2019 (UTC)
 * The whole lyrics is about a girl's dull routine until "the day before you came". The only exceptions are "[...] I'm pretty sure it must have rained", "And rattling on the roof I must have heard the sound of rain" and "[...] I'm sure my life was well within its usual frame", "[...] but I had no sense of living without aim". What happens the day "you came" and thereafter is definitively unbeknownst. 87.196.74.54 (talk) 18:51, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

English-speaking solo careers
Wouldn't it be better to write "English-singing solo careers"? 77.126.27.3 (talk) 19:03, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I suppose so, though both sound a bit odd. I've changed it to "English-language solo careers", which sounds most natural to me. (I'm a native English speaker, if that matters.) 86.132.139.119 (talk) 23:37, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

before
Shouldn't "before" be written low case in the title, since it's a preposition? --85.253.85.72 (talk) 03:57, 16 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Style manuals (e.g. Chicago) generally support your opinion on classic title case usage. If The Day before You Came looks a bit untidy, maybe it's because, in that short phrase, only the word other is not an obvious candidate for a capital initial. In commercial contexts like advertising, it's common practice to start every word in a title with a capital, presumably both to maximise the impact and to achieve a more even visual effect. Humboles (talk) 10:27, 13 December 2015 (UTC)

"excessive amount of intricate detail...."
... is precisely why I come to Wikipedia; it saves me having to trawl the entire web for these intelligent musicological analyses, to have them aggregated here. to whomever added the "this article may contain.." tag- what? are you worried about server space? your electricity bill? justify the tag or remove it.

duncanrmi (talk) 13:34, 1 March 2016 (UTC)


 * I agree - the article does contain a significant amount of detail, but I feel that the content remains relevant to the topic. In fact, this is the depth of coverage one would expect of a FA (cf. Something (Beatles song)). Tag removed. GregorB (talk) 18:56, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

I think this is an excellent article and appreciate the excessive amount of intricate detail. A big thank you to whoever wrote the interpretation section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.88.123.137 (talk) 11:01, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

"Kultur" source on the recording and ambience of the song
There are multiple references in the article to a piece in the big Stockholm daily Dagens Nyheter, and these are cited to "Kultur" in the main text. Now there's no such thing as a guy called Mr. Kultur; the piece was written by novelist Jerker Virdborg, whose name is clearly there at the bottom. I changed one of those points in the text, but can't be bothered to look them all up in this long (somewhat overlong?) WP article. "Kultur" means simply "culture" in Swedish, and it's shorthand for the name of the section of DN that Virdborg's article appeared in ("culture pages", a common feature of major dailies in Sweden though the coverage is nowise restricted to "high culture").

Also, I would caution against using Google Translate, as was done in this case. Anyone who has seen a few texts run through Google's translation software and who is familiar with both languages involved will know that the results can be quite erratic, sometimes even ridiculously wrong (I'm a native speaker of Swedish myself, with English as a second language but no anglophone family background). 83.251.170.27 (talk) 01:59, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

Interpretation
Mostly original research or uncorroborated facts, based partially on unreliable sources, not confirmed by any reliable source. IMHO all of it should be deleted as no part of those stories have been confirmed by the author of the lyrics or any reliable analyse. I have removed the section concerning murders since it contained no single quotation and sounded much as as a made up story. Kicior99 (talk) 01:59, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

rewritten entirely?
Any suggestions as to how it should be rewritten? If there are not suggestions with the next days. I will remove the tag. Red Jay (talk) 14:13, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

as noted above, I like it how it is. the salient, factual stuff is there at the top, while lower down we have some interpretations of the song. how is that not encyclopedic? encyclopedias of the past dealt with art in much the same way- here are the facts, now here's the interpretation. maybe it's outside of wikipedia's stated remit to include this, perhaps that's the objection. then I would question that remit. I can get mere facts from anywhere; I came here (wikipedia) for information. I am more informed about the song, because I've read an interpretation of it, whether I agree with that interpretation or not.

duncanrmi (talk) 16:05, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Second lead vocal by Agnetha in two years?
The article states that: In The Day Before You Came, Agnetha had her second lead vocal in two years (the previous song being The Winner Takes It All), which is noteworthy as "Frida does not double or harmonise with Agnetha's vocal line", and instead only provides backing vocals.

It is clear to me that Head Over Heels and One Of Us have Agnetha in the lead as well, and they came after The Winner Takes It All, and Frida is doubling her lines in the latter. I suppose the phrasing is not conveying what it's intending to say?

I just put a citation needed tag since I'm not sure what the excerpt is trying to say.

Richard Wolf VI (talk) 04:40, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Blancmange version(s)
I don't have time to do it right now, because it's going to require a little thought how to best frame it, but I feel it is definitely worth noting that there are in fact two totally different recordings of the song by Blancmange, produced by two different people. The Peter Collins version is more straight-ahead pop, while the John Luongo one has a slightly looser feel, with a lot of added Indian percussion (especially on the extended version.)

Cassandra
Why does it redirect here instead of having it's own article? 38.73.253.217 (talk) 04:18, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Use in Mamma Mia: Here we go again
I’m no editor, but would someone be willing to add a paragraph on its performance by Meryl Streep and how it was ultimately cut from the film (if it was filmed at all?) 2600:1702:4510:3820:CD53:AFF:80BD:D05D (talk) 02:31, 21 August 2023 (UTC)