Every Moment Has A Song

Abba: “Slipping Through My Fingers” (1981)

When we last featured Abba in this series of posts, we were wiping a tear away as we listened to the tale of marital disintegration “My Love, My Life” from their aptly-named 1977 stateside breakthrough album Arrival.

Despite the bright, poppy, polyester image these Swedes are sadly saddled with, actually they could serve up heartache like few bands of any era, perhaps because too often the heartache in the writing was of the autobiographical sort.

So here’s a fresh serving of pain–a tune about a mother’s regret in watching her daughter grow up too soon, inspired by band members Bjorn and Agnetha’s (at the time) seven-year-old daughter Linda Ulvaeus.

The song was released as a single only in Japan, as a promo single for the Coca-Cola company. The Visitors, from which it came, was their eighth and–unbeknownst to them at the time–final album.

Schoolbag in hand, she leaves home in the early morning
Waving goodbye with an absent-minded smile
I watch her go with a surge of that well-known sadness
And I have to sit down for a while

The feeling that I’m losing her forever
And without really entering her world
I’m glad whenever I can share her laughter
That funny little girl

Slipping through my fingers all the time
I try to capture every minute
The feeling in it
Slipping through my fingers all the time
Do I really see what’s in her mind
Each time I think I’m close to knowing
She keeps on growing
Slipping through my fingers all the time

Sleep in our eyes
Her and me at the breakfast table
Barely awake, I let precious time go by
Then when she’s gone
There’s that odd melancholy feeling
And a sense of guilt I can’t deny

What happened to the wonderful adventures
The places I had planned for us to go
(Slipping through my fingers all the time)
Well, some of that we did but most we didn’t
And why, I just don’t know

Slipping through my fingers all the time
I try to capture every minute
The feeling in it
Slipping through my fingers all the time
Do I really see what’s in her mind
Each time I think I’m close to knowing
She keeps on growing
Slipping through my fingers all the time

Sometimes I wish that I could freeze the picture
And save it from the funny tricks of time
Slipping through my fingers

Slipping through my fingers all the time

Schoolbag in hand she leaves home in the early morning
Waving goodbye with an absent-minded smile

See also: https://edcyphers.com/2012/05/01/songs-you-may-have-missed-94/