Song Analysis - Elaine

November 15th 1979 marked the final date of the Europe portion of ABBA's world tour, before embarking on the next leg in Japan in March.  But of course ABBA didn't use that entire time to rest.  Rather, beginning in January, Agnetha and Frida began recording ABBA's Spanish album, and Bjorn and Benny used that opportunity to take a songwriting trip to the Barbados.

One of the first songs to come out of this trip was a track originally titled Elaine Elaine Elaine, but ultimately it would get shortened to just one Elaine.  Recorded in February, 1980, this track is honestly such a stark contrast from all of the songs from the Super Trouper session, and perhaps that's one of the reasons why it never ended up making it on the album and instead remained a B-side.

The song itself is quite odd as well.  A lot of ABBA songs tell a story that is pretty easy to figure out. You have just enough context that you can fill in the blanks and easily come up with an interpretation that matches up with the song.  Elaine, however, is confusing.  The song is about a woman named Elaine, who seems to feel stuck or trapped by something that she knows is ultimately coming for her.  No matter what, this thing, whatever it is, will happen no matter how hard she tries to fight it off.  She screams, she swears, she tries to breakaway, but it all means nothing.  A mysterious "they" is going to get to her anyway.  

The final line "they have your mind they’ll take your soul" kinda makes me thing of like mind control in some way, or many even addiction to something.  Maybe this song is a warning to how addicted everyone is going to be to mobile phones in the future..?  Lol jk.  Or maybe this song is about an Alien invasion and the aliens are coming.  Perhaps the song is about someone trying to break free of some type of rut that everyone else is stuck in, but they're all resistant to change and try to drag her down with them.  Maybe Elaine is a prophet of some sort or a time traveler, and she tries to warn the people that this thing is happening, but ultimately no one listens to her.

Honestly, especially with the first verse being, "You hate, you scream, you swear, and still you never reach ’em.  You curse, you try to scare, but you can never teach ’em," kinda remind me of the Greek myth of Cassandra, which ABBA did end up writing a song about later in 1982.  Cassandra tried to warn the people of Troy about all types of dangers, but she was dismissed and ignored and mistreated.  Kind of giving the same vibes of ABBA's Elaine. 

Ultimately I guess we'll never know who or what the song is about, especially as Bjorn and Benny have pretty much said nothing about it, but also that's the beauty of music.  Especially where none of ABBA's songs unless otherwise stated are personal retellings of anything and are at most inspired by real life, they truly are up for anyone to interpret.  

Both Agnetha and Frida sing in unison on this track, but not in harmony except maybe on the line "and the street is narrow."  There also aren't as many layers of harmony and backing vocals in this song either.  Dare I say, this is the start of ABBA's "lazy" era.  That's not to say they didn't add any more harmony to songs, as there are so many stunning harmonies in Super Trouper and Put On Your White Sombrero, it's just when you compare songs from the whole Super Trouper album to songs from the Voulez-Vous album, there is quite a stark contrast in the amount of harmonies and backing vocals present.  However, in a way, it's like ABBA were reverting to their music style from before the Arrival album.  I guess you could say from Arrival to Voulez-Vous, ABBA were taking their craft extra seriously.  They took their time perfecting their craft, whereas on prior albums they were more rushed for time or were just starting out.  This is kinda why I personally think that ABBA's Voulez-Vous album was honestly their peak vocal-wise.  (and of course this is not to say I dislike the tracks from Super Trouper or The Visitors or even Voyage.  I love them all.  I'm just pointing out differences.)

The music for Elaine is quite groovy as well, with most of the instruments being played on Benny's synthesizer.  It's fun, but the music certainly contrasts the dark undertones of the lyrics!

(Also in case anyone is wondering why my posts have been lacking as of late - as you all know, I am a creative person and I use my hands a lot for art - drawing, sewing,writing, carrying around my crazy heavy zoom lens that I use for photographing animals, etc, and my wrist is currently suffering from all of that combined with the fact that I am really bad at letting my hands rest.... and typing aggravates my wrist........  So yeah. :)  Here's hoping I can force myself to stop aggravating it because this is no fun lol.)