Abba - Like An Angel Passing Through My Room

It was Frida's 64th birthday last week on November 15th. This is William Orbit's remix for Madonna's unreleased 1999 cover of Like An Angel Passing Through My Room and is set to Frida's original 1981 singing. Madonna's version did not make her album Music, but was leaked onto the internet in August 2008. It can be found on youtube, giving an opportunity to directly compare the 2 singers with the same backing track. This video is provided courtesy of Philippe Dupont at abbainter.net.
Abba commenced work on Like An Angel Passing Through My Room on May 26 1981 and recorded 3 versions on June 5, October 23 and November 8 before the final version was recorded on November 10. Like An Angel Passing Through My Room was released as the last track of Abba's final album The Visitors on November 30 1981. It is the only Abba song to feature a completely solo vocal. Initially the track featured vocals from both Agnetha and Frida and at one point it was turned into a disco track. Frida recalls: "This song means a lot to me. Benny and I were alone in the studio. Alone with the 'tick-tock' of the metronome. I love this kind of song."
Unlike many other ABBA songs, the final mix of the track was sparsely produced. The entire track consists of the soloist's vocals and the music box sound effects of the synthesiser with the sound of a ticking clock throughout. Rune Söderqvist's design of the album sleeve for The Visitors was partly inspired by this song's theme. He recalls: "I knew the painter Julius Kronberg's studio in Skansen very well and immediately thought of this place when I found out one of the songs was called 'Like An Angel Passing Through My Room'. He had painted this huge angel called Eros which you can see on the sleeve. I love the atmosphere created by photographer Lars Larsson, although I have bad memories of the photo shoot because it was very cold. Benny arrived late, there was no heating and the atmosphere was tense. You could feel that it was the end of the group. When you look you can see that they are all standing away from each other. Without anyone of us being aware of it, it looks like they're living in separate worlds on the sleeve. The photo shoot was very brief that day because everyone was in a hurry to leave."
Frida and Benny had seperated in February 1981 and were divorced on November 26 after 12 years together and 3 years of marriage. One week later and three days after the release of The Visitors, Benny married Mona Norklit in a secret ceremony in Stockholm on December 3. Frida recalls "This was a very sad time personally, because I split up with Benny. We still went on because we wanted to finish The Visitors album. We never mentioned it, but there was a certain atmosphere between the four of us."
Frida's grandmother Agny brought her up after her mother died young and often sang songs to her (notably old Norwegian songs) which resulted in her love for music. She soon showed musical talent at an early age, beginning in her first years at school. On Fridays she was often asked by her teacher to sing in front of the class and soon became known in school and in the neighborhood for her beautiful voice. At 13 she got her first job as a dance band and schlager singer in 1958 with The Evald Eks Orchestra. The sets often lasted up to five hours at weekends. Evald Ek remembers: "It was hard to believe such a young person could sing that well. She was so easy to rehearse with and she was never shy onstage. The only thing I taught her was to sing out." Later she teamed up with a 15-piece 'jazz big band' covering Glenn Miller, Duke Ellington and Count Basie; her vocal idols being Ella Fitzgerald and Peggy Lee. In 1963 she formed her own band, the Anni-Frid Four. On September 3 1967 Frida won the Swedish national talent competition "New Faces" and a recording contract with EMI Sweden, and her career took off. In 1969 she participated in Melodifestivalen - the Swedish heats for the Eurovision Song Contest - and finished fourth. Backstage she met Benny who participated in the contest as a composer and they soon became a couple. Today Frida engages in charity work and environmental issues and lives in Switzerland.

Music / Lyrics: Benny Andersson / Björn Ulvaeus
Lead vocal: Frida

Long awaited darkness falls
Casting shadows on the walls
In the twilight hour I am alone
Sitting near the fireplace
Dying embers warm my face
In this peaceful solitude
All the outside world subdued
Everything comes back
To me again in the gloom
Like an angel passing through my room

Half awake and half in dreams
Seeing long forgotten scenes
So the present runs into the past
Now and then become entwined
Playing games within my mind
Like the embers as they die
Love was one prolonged good-bye
And it all comes back
To me tonight in the gloom
Like an angel passing through my room

I close my eyes and my twilight
Images go by all too soon
Like an angel passing through my room

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Music

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• Abba

[mathxp]

the video is a bizarre one. is that Frida? do you know how made this video?

[abbafanglosuk]

Hello its not Frida in the video and I don't know who made it - though its very atmospheric to match her beautiful singing!

[Rhiabbaco]

Is this song about someone that is dying or who gonna dies?

[abbafanglosuk]

@Rhiabbaco

Its actually about love that is fading away between 2 people.

The key line is:

"Love was one prolonged good-bye"

Its probably auto-biographic, as it was recorded just 2 weeks before Frida and Benny divorced!

[flexdream]

This takes me right back to my student days and the early 80s and listening to this on vinyl. Happy memories :)

[abbafanglosuk]

Yes The Visitors album would be perfect background music for studying, as Abba were at their most creative by then! Every track is uplifting and melodic like this one, and just right for singing along to!

[misery980]

the best group ever. timeless music.

[aleuschner2]

Muß ja ein ganz schlimmes Lied sein !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wenn ich in Deutschland das nicht hören darf ?????????????

Das ist eines der besten lieder die je gehört habe !!!!!!!!!

For the not germans krauts :-)

thath´s the best song for me at this jeahr and an i have many situatioins excuseme my english but i nor understand why the englisch people think german people are only krauts

[blackleejack]

beautiful ..

[titinajackson]

Amazing song!!!

[JimColyer]

I did an analysis of 110 ABBA songs, dividing them into nine categories. The categories cut across the albums. This came about after concentrated listening over time. Certain songs point to and coalesce with other songs with similar themes.

The 110 songs fit together like pieces of a puzzle. Once connected, they form a picture of youth. When ABBA closes their eyes in Like An Angel Passing Through My Room, they are passing into middle age. The creative fires burn low from then on.

[MichelLoisseau]

Pour moi, la musique ajoutée détruit l'original que je contribue à chérir;,.

[novalis]

@Rhiabbaco

For me, there surely are several layers of meaning behind the lyrics - I understood it as the reflection of someone who's peacefully falling asleep... and dying. The song is another addition to the generally very melancholic tone of the album - the evanescence of love, life and happiness forming its guiding theme.

[mathxp]

Symbolic elements of magic realism all around, shows an intelligent director for the video.

[mathxp]

Amazing video...

[ihussain2000]

This is a great version of the song - I've not heard it before. I like the William Orbit backing - it adds another dimension to the original song. Very thoughtfully done.

I've written an instrumental version of the song myself, posted here on youtube - i can't seem to paste in the link

[lisaleeharpwaugh]

SENSATIONAL INTENSE

[woutch]

@abbafanglosuk Of course it's Frida in the video! It's scenes from her Aven En Bloomer clip from 1996.