Song Analysis - Tropical Loveland

I've said for years that this song is my top favorite ABBA song, and it still is.  This song is unlike any other ABBA song.  For starters, Bjorn and Benny took influence from reggae music, with "Raggae" even being the working title for the song. With recording commencing on February 21st, 1975 (coincidentally 49 years ago to the date - no I did not plan that), it features some lovely accordion playing, fun drums, and some incredible vocals from Frida.

Tropical Loveland is a song about love, and beautiful nature.  Perhaps the use of the word loveland in teh song is a euphemism for something else, but on it's face value, the song is like a love song to nature and the beauties that mother nature provides us with.  Mellow grass, bright blue sky, flowers and gardens, rainbows, and birds.  You know those pages on social media about nostaliga and liminal spaces?  In particular when they share posts about a beautiful summer day in the early 2000s with that perfect lighting and everything is so saturated and beautiful - that's how I picture the tropical loveland, or at least that's what my tropical loveland would look like.  

Okay there's this scene during the Barney the Dinosaur movie from 1998, Barney's Great Adventure, when they step out during a sunshower and go towards some hot air balloons and the LIGHTING in that scene is a perfect example of my favorite lighting in the whole entire world and it gives me so much NOSTALGIA and that feeling is exactly how I feel when I listen to Tropical Loveland.  

Not only does the song oddly give me such good, happy feelings, the feel of the song and Frida's lead vocals are absolutely amazing.  Frida takes the lead vocals of this song and sings in such a soft, warm way.  She makes the song sound so cozy, and I can't really describe it further.  It's just perfect.  And then when the other three join in during the chorus, with Agnetha's sweet higher harmonies, it's just perfection.  I also love  when Bjorn and Benny sing "to my loveland" throughout the second verse, and lastly but certainly not least is the end of the song when Agnetha sings, "Ooh, it’s a tropical loveland.  ooh, I wanna share it with you," while Frida kind of ad libs?? idk what the actual term is and the way their voices just intertwine with each other is so beautiful. 

While I was reading through the lyrics, with all the vivid descriptors of the tropical loveland, I found myself reminded of a song from nearly 50 years later, Bumblebee from ABBA's Voyage album.   That song is also about nature, though mostly focusing on a fuzzy little bumblebee as he flies around the garden and collects nectar from all the flowers.  Though the song is also about how important bumblebees are so important to our ecosystem, with the current state of the world, bumblebees are at risk of dying out and without them, so much of our earth would start to crumble and fail.  The earth with all its beauty that is described so clearly in Tropical Loveland could fall apart without bumblebees, and of course plenty of other creatures that are going extinct at increasing rates.

Anyways, back to a more positive subject, this song is just so beautiful.  I love nature, animals, sunny days, and of course ABBA's sweet, sweet vocals, and this song gives all of that to me.  

Unfortunately ABBA have only performed this song three times, plus there's a clip showcasing ABBA enjoying some of Australia's beauty set to this song but that's not really a performance.  Even though there are so few performances of this song, each one is so special and beautiful, and each deserve to be watched.