It was my pleasure recently to receive the following thoughts on Björn's lyrics from Carsten Lan-Jensen, in Copenhagen.  Few have previously made a case for ABBA having produced a concept album, although many have noted that some albums reflect the status or mood of the group (e.g. ABBA, The Visitors).  Carsten has found concept in Arrival:  

I really think that ABBA's lyrics are intended to be much more ambiguous, dark and mischievous [than is generally assumed]. 

In That's Me, the singer is evidently afraid of involvement and is a restricted figure. The flipside of self knowledge, she has retracted into total insolation. 

This goes well together with Arrival's overall theme, if you try to take the songs seriously. In all songs,the woman character is a little over the edge, wanting a father figure (Kissed the Teacher), teasing boys (Dancing Queen), being decadent (Money Money), or careless (Why Did It Have To Be Me). Along the way, she ends up in a loveless relationship (Dum, Dum) that breaks up (Knowing Me Knowing You).

I like to think that Tiger shows her finally being trapped in her own sick games in a city that closes around her in deadly darkness. The instumental Arrival is her burial song... or who knows - a new and better life.


The Day Before You Came.

I always thought of it as romantic, but now I see it has some obvious twists. "I must have heard the sound of rain" seems to me more like a warning or a sign of what misery is to come for her than just a thing of her sorry past. Her dreams of love are what get her down, and this is why Blancmange very cleaverly chose to substitute Barbara Cartland for Marilyn French, to point out the triviality of her daydreams.

The video has obviously nothing to do with the lyrics as such, since, in the lyrics, she is alone. However, cleverly, the video shows that the lyrics could be fit for more than one situation, if you take them a little loosely, which is why the video is good art.

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