57. The Day Before You Came &...

Lyrics

I must have left my house at eight, because I always do
My train, I'm certain, left the station just when it was due
I must have read the morning paper going into town
And having gotten through the editorial, no doubt I must have frowned
I must have made my desk around a quarter after nine
With letters to be read, and heaps of papers waiting to be signed
I must have gone to lunch at half past twelve or so
The usual place, the usual bunch
And still on top of this I'm pretty sure it must have rained
The day before you came

I must have lit my seventh cigarette at half past two
And at the time I never even noticed I was blue
I must have kept on dragging through the business of the day
Without really knowing anything, I hid a part of me away
At five I must have left, there's no exception to the rule
A matter of routine, I've done it ever since I finished school
The train back home again
Undoubtedly I must have read the evening paper then
Oh yes, I'm sure my life was well within its usual frame
The day before you came

I must have opened my front door at eight o'clock or so
And stopped along the way to buy some Chinese food to go
I'm sure I had my dinner watching something on TV
There's not, I think, a single episode of Dallas that I didn't see
I must have gone to bed around a quarter after ten
I need a lot of sleep, and so I like to be in bed by then
I must have read a while
The latest one by Marilyn French or something in that style
It's funny, but I had no sense of living without aim
The day before you came

And turning out the light I must have yawned and cuddled up for yet another night
And rattling on the roof I must have heard the sound of rain
The day before you came


This is the last song ABBA ever recorded. They sure went out on a high note. I think this is a really good and very interesting song.  And it's by far the best thing they've ever done. The lyrics are slightly cheesy, but in an intelligent way. Their cheesiness seems to be the whole point. The woman is aware that her life before 'he' came was cliche and stereotypically cheesy. That is precisely the reason she is telling us about her day(s) before he came, thereby implying, of course, that after he came, her life became better. I think it is quite wonderful how she stresses the importance of her lover by actually telling us nothing about her life with him, instead focusing on her life without him. I can't think of another (popular) song really with this kind of structure.

In any case, while writing this piece I became more and more in awe with the lyrics and the structure of this song. So I decided to read around a bit, and this song just became even more fascinating. I interpreted this song as it being about her lover, but that's not ever explicitly stated in the song. The 'you' who came may not be her lover. It may not even be a man. But let's say that the 'you' who came is her lover. Then we still have to deal with the fact that we don't actually know whether she is still with him. The video clip, after all, ends in heartbreak. Imagine she's breaking up with her lover. That would add another layer to the song, and some more poignancy too. Than these lyrics would be a remembrance of a sad time, that could now come back. This is not that far-fetched an interpretation. After all, it would mirror real life. As I wrote earlier this is ABBA's final song. They were about to break up. After all this, I find it quite unfortunate to say that I linked such a 'simple' movie to this song. But the character as described in the song, did (and still does) remind of the typical role Sandra Bullock played in her romantic comedies, especially in the 90's. And I am quite happy to report that the movie I chose opens with a similar shot like the video clip.

The Movie: While You Were Sleeping (Jon Turteltaub, 1995)

I suppose this will be one of the only times that I'll have more intelligent things to write about the song, than about the movie. This is a very lightweight movie that does nothing much that's interesting to write about. But there is also nothing to really hate about it. I kind of wished it was directed by the Coens, or some other like-minded directors. They could have turned the movie into a wonderful pitch black comedy or a great satire if they fully acknowledged, and engaged with, the insanity of the characters. After all, we are dealing with a plot here in which Sandra Bullock plays a woman named Lucy who after saving a man who fell on the train rails is mistakenly believed to be his fiancee. The guy, named Peter can't do anything about it, because he is in a coma. So Peter's family takes Lucy in as one of their own. She goes along with it (mostly because there wouldn't be a movie if she didn't). But also because she is single and lives alone in the big city. And because if it now turns out that she is not Peter's fiancee, his grandmother will die of a heart attack. That's at least what Saul,who finds out Lucy's secret, tells her. Saul is not blood related to anyone in the family, nor is he married to someone who is (though he is Peter's godfather). Yet he still does everything together with the family, which obviously doesn't have much trouble taking people in. I keep referring to the family as if it is a character, because it basically is here. We hardly ever see any of Peter's family members alone. All of them are always at the same place! Except Peter's brother Jack, who while his brother is in a coma, falls in love with Lucy and starts hitting on her. Despite the fact that he he thinks she's his brother's fiancee. Meanwhile Lucy is stalked by a an Italian doofus in her flat, who keeps deluding himself that he has a chance with Lucy.

Well, you can see how this could have been a black comedy. But it's not, nor does it want to be. It wants to be a silly, lighthearted Sandra Bullock romantic comedy. And it does a good job of being that. I am not exactly its target audience, but I enjoyed it. It is of course contrived, but not too much. There isn't much drama for its own sake. In fact I liked that it sometimes actively avoided unnecessary dramatics, like when Jack tells his father that he doesn't want to work for their furniture company any more, because he has started his own successful one. His dad is (surprisingly) perfectly fine with it, and they continue their pleasant conversation. Pleasant is basically the tone of every conversation in the movie. I also liked the fact that while the movie is set between Christmas and New Year, there isn't a really big deal made out of it. This is (thank God) not a Christmas movie with all the cliches that come with it. It is just pretty convenient for it to be set around that time, because it means that there is snow. And without snow the best throwaway gag of the film would be impossible. Nor would Jack and Lucy be able to fall in live if they didn't flirtingly help each other to not fall on the ice The family members are played by actors like Jack Warden and Peter Boyle, whose roles mostly consist of saying funny one-liners, giving good advice and seeming like generally nice people. They are good at that.

Everything though revolves around Sandra Bullock and she is (genuinely) very good. She always manages to come of smarter and cuter than she should be based on her dialogue. She somehow makes Lucy a quite charming character and makes us care for her. She is clearly smarter than the material, but she never even gives the slightest of hints that she is above it. She even comes of as joyous. I am not and have never been a really big fan of her (though I also don't mind her at all), but she certainly deserves some respect. She is one of the few actresses who was a star in the 1990's and has remained so. Women like Julia Roberts, Cameron Diaz and Catherine Zeta-Jones are now a bit forgotten and mostly have small roles in films that are neither very good or very popular. The fates of the likes of Meg Ryan, Andie MacDowell and Minnie Driver are even worse. That's not necessarily their fault. Older actresses aren't always treated very well in Hollywood (that is a bit of an understatement). The only other actresses actually who were stars in the 90's and still are, are probably Meryl Streep (who is a star since the 70's and is probably untouchable) and Natalie Portman (who is much younger). That can't be just because of Bullock's acting ability. It takes intelligence too. There are better actresses than Sandra Bullock, but she has starred this year in the very successful blockbuster comedy The Heat, and later this year she'll star next to George Clooney in the artsy science-fiction drama Gravity. Few other actresses can/get the chance to do that.