The Day Before You Came - Composition

Composition

On "The Day Before You Came", for the first time in ABBA's history, Benny was the only person to play instruments. He built up the music from a click track template, something which he later said "was probably not a good idea", despite his liking the track. The entire backing track of the song was put together in the studio, "initially consisting of a single melodic fragment that leant itself to being repeated in a series of ascending and descending phrases over several key changes". The production is minimalist, featuring only " GX-1, a snare drum, and a few licks of acoustic guitar". While the song has "long, sustained block chords" – a "given" for ABBA songs, it also has "a liberal smattering of percussive synth effects". An example is the "carefree", "spontaneous", and "conversational" synthetic twin flutes, which begin their "integral role in the soundscape offering regular bouts of whimsical reassurance" at the very start of the track. These flutes are "arguably signature sound". Their riff "smooths out a series of sustained chordal layers" in the refrains, aided by the backing vocals.

In an interview done for the book Abba – Uncensored on the Record, music journalist Hugh Fielder says that the song is "built on banks of electronic instruments that provide a strong atmosphere for Frida's vocals". He comments that her vocals have been mixed into the background of the song, creating a "cold, objective" atmosphere, "almost as if she's looking down on the rest of us". He says the song has a "theatrical element", and puts this down to the fact that by this time Benny and Bjorn had started thinking beyond 5 minute pop songs and began writing in terms of stage productions, the next frontier beyond ABBA.

In response to the question of whether Lay All Your Love On Me had been sequenced, Benny replied: "it may sound like it was, but was not sequenced. It's just well played!" He adds that while they had used click tracks in the past, the only song ABBA to have ever used sequences was The Day Before You Came. The lack of use throughout the vast majority of ABBA's history is because he "couldn't handle it at the time didn't know how to do it", and because he preferred to play live with other band members, although by 2006 he had become more open to the technology.

In the 1982 recording sessions, Benny and Bjorn's aimed to "keep...the arrangements as simple as possible and to create them electronically". As with the rest of their time in ABBA, their main priority was "melodic strength". Real drums were rejected in favour of a "synth-generated beat", however in the end a snare was also included in the final backing track. As with the majority of other tracks produced around this time, there is no hint of grand piano, or bass, electric, or acoustic guitars (except a "very understated acoustic guitar" which plays from 3:35–4:01 ). Practically all the instruments are synthetically made. The song has the same production style of I Am The City, a song recorded earlier that year. Throughout the song, Benny litters the soundscape with a "surprising...mixed bag of synth sounds" which add texture to the piece.

In The Day Before You Came, Agnetha had her second lead vocal in two years (the previous song being The Winner Takes It All), which is noteworthy as "Frida does not double or harmonise with Agnetha's vocal line", and instead only provides backing vocals. In an "intriguing new approach" that had rarely been done in previous ABBA recordings (as she usually sings the lower melody and harmony lines), Frida uses a "vibrato-laden...operatic technique" when singing "the sustained high range melody line refrains". At the point in each refrain where the vocal line drops an octave "to a more manageable resister", she "relaxes her vowel sound to a free-flowing and tender falsetto". A "series of subtle vocal and production reinforcentments" give verse three both a sense of empathy and heightened tension. It is at this point in the song that Frida provides a "delicate and brittle" backing vocal to Agnetha's lead. Bjorn joins in later in the verse, at "I must've gone to bed...", to add to this "smooth and genial major-key affirmation".

Benny's riffs "level...out into a more synthetic plateau" at "And rattling on the roof...", Agnetha's second-last phrase. One more repeat of the "forlorn title hook", and the lead vocals end, the soundscape being swept up by the instruments and backing vocals in a "moving mosaic of sound colours" until the end of the song.

The sheet music of the song has been released.