Song Analysis - Eagle

ABBA have a lot of songs that mention or reference animals, and a lot of those animals are birds.  Now I don't know for certain, but I think Benny had a bit of an interest in birds, and he used a lot of bird-inspired sounds in his original song for the Hep Stars, Sound of Eve.  Other songs that mention birds in particular, prior to Eagle, are Dance (While The Music Still Goes On), Tropical Loveland, and That's Me,.  (After writing Eagle, we also have Move On, Take A Chance On Me, Summer Night City, Lay All Your Love On Me, and When All Is Said And Done.)

Seeing as ABBA and birds seem to be a common theme, it's no wonder that eventually they'd write a song all about a bird, titled Eagle.  The song is kind of philosophical or fantastical in a way, and on it's base level, it's about hanging out with and becoming friends with these absolutely fascinating winged creatures.  

According to wikipedia, it's source being the liner notes on the remastered version of the Album, Bjorn and Benny allegedly wanted to write this song as a tribute to one of their favorite bands, the Eagles, but the more commonly discussed source of inspiration to Bjorn and Benny when writing this song is the 1970 novel by Richard Back, Jonathan Livingston Seagull.  I have not read the book so I have no idea what it's about, but according to Wikipedia it's an allegorical story about a seagull named Jonathan Livingston Seagull who is learning to fly, and spends a lot of his time thinking about personal reflection, such as freedom and self-realization.  As a bird lover myself who spends a lot of time studying my budgies as well as this flock of wild turkeys that I have somehow managed to befriend (I know I'm digressing but there's this one particular turkey, who I have called Tommy, who started approaching me in late November like all on his own, and as a result I ended up getting introduced to his entire flock and now we're all friends and three of them will eat from my hand) and I have been loving analyzing their bird behaviors (and there are a lot of similarities between turkey behavior and budgie behavior btw), so maybe the Jonathan Livingston Seagull book is worth my read.

 But ANYWAYs, in the Eagle song, which was recorded in June, 1977, it is unclear whether this song is about a seagull learning to communicate with his eagle friends, just another bird who wants to be an eagle, or a human who can somehow fly with eagles (Have you seen the Fly Away Home movie?  It is 100% possible to fly with birds!).  

Regardless of who or what the song is about, it's a beautiful tribute to Eagles, and their majestic lives.  The narrator of the song admires the Eagle, their beauty, and how "powerful" they are.  They fly ridiculously high in the sky, over long distances, and they have the ability to fly wherever they want.  They are insanely beautiful creatures, and they have no limits to what they can do, especially as they don't really have any natural predators. 

The music of this song manages to capture to that feeling of admiration in its sound.  It's absolutely beautiful, with lovely synthesizer, acoustic guitar, and an overall celestial sound if that makes any sense.  Agnetha and Frida sing lead vocals on this track together and their is again that beautiful blend of the two of their voices, with harmony upon harmony in the chorus.  Bjorn and Benny join in as well from the second chorus onwards with some nice backing vocals, singing "I'm an eagle." and "What a feeling." and "high, I'm high, I'm an eagle" in the last chorus.

One of my absolutely favorite parts of the song is the extended "Hi-iigh, high, I'm a bird in the sky" in the last chorus.  They just sound so heavenly in this track.  I love it.  And as a bird lover, I very much love this song.

The instrumental break in between the third chorus and the third bridge is absolutely amazing as well.  And the extended outro, with I think guitar? is really incredible.  Though when performing the song live during the 1979 tour, Lasse Wellander would perform an absolutely beautiful extended guitar solo.  Speaking of live, we have two official releases of the live version of this track, one from the 1986 live album and one from the 2014 Live at Wembley Arena album, and ABBA sounded so good live.  I love the studio track with my entire heat and soul, but there is just something extra special about their live performances.  It's got that ethereal quality to it and it's just amazing. 

ABBA only performed the song on two TV shows, once on Starparde and the other in Japan, and they also first performed the song in the elevator sequence in ABBA the Movie.  Aside from their live performances during the 1979/1980 tour, they never performed the song in it's entire 5:53 glory.  I get the need for a single edit as the song is insanely long, but the abridged version of the song just doesn't cut it for me haha. Still, here's a compilation of all of their various officially recorded performances of their song.  But if you look on YouTube you should be able to find some bootleg footage of them from the 1979 tour.