Is the New ABBA Song, the Angel Song Demos?

There has been lots of Buzz about a new ABBA song being released in April, when the new Deluxe version of their "Visitors" Album is reissued. But I don't think it's really an actual song. Sounds more like a mixture of experiments:

ABBA – The Visitors Deluxe Edition CD with previously unreleased demo medley

Wonderful news! ABBA’s last studio album The Visitors is to receive the ‘Deluxe Edition’ CD treatment. As with previous releases in the Deluxe Edition series, this version of ABBA’s final album offers a DVD of archive material along with CD bonus tracks.

Notably, it includes (what sounds like it could be a musical journey through the evolution of Like An Angel Passing Through My Room) a demo medley called From A Twinkling Star To A Passing Angel, the first previously unreleased ABBA recordings since 1994! [...]

We'll see when it comes out. I looked up their song "Like An Angel Passing Through My Room" on Wikipedia, and found this:

"Like an Angel Passing Through My Room" by ABBA is the closing track from the group's final studio album, The Visitors. It was written by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus.

Work began on this track on 26 May, 1981 in Polar Music Studios. [1] At first, the track was given the title, "Another Morning Without You". In later recording sessions it was re-titled "An Angel Walked Through My Room", "An Angel's Passing Through My Room" and also "Twinkle Twinkle". At one point the song was turned into a disco track but this idea was eventually abandoned as the group felt it sounded too similar to "Lay All Your Love on Me".[2] Initially the track featured vocal parts from both Agnetha Fältskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad but the final version of the song featured Anni-Frid as soloist. It is the only ABBA song to feature just one vocalist. [3]

Unlike many other ABBA songs, the final mix of the track was sparsely produced - the entire track consisting of the soloist's vocals, synthesized strings, and a music box melody (also synthesized). The sound of a ticking clock, also heard throughout the track, was produced by Andersson's MiniMoog.

The designer of the album sleeve for The Visitors, Rune Söderqvist, was partly inspired by this song's theme when he conceived the idea of photographing the group standing before Julius Kronberg's painting of an angelic-looking Eros.[4] [...]

Read the whole thing for embedded links and more information.

The song as it exists right now, is quite nice. Below is a YouTube of the song, with photos of Freida (Lyngstad). Below that, I've posted the lyrics. Enjoy.


(Lyrics from azlyrics.com)

"Like An Angel Passing Through My Room"

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

I read somewhere, that it was the very last song that ABBA ever recorded.


Also see:

Abba's Agnetha speaks out: "I'm no recluse"
     

John McCain: Take a Chance on Me

Shocking scandal: John McCain is an ABBA fan:

McCain controversy

[...] "He said that a lot of people won't admit that they love ABBA, but he would," radio jock Rich Berra says. "Then he asked us if it was old-fashioned to like ABBA, and we said that it wasn't old-fashioned at all."

Well, what could they say? Granted, ABBA broke up back in the '80s and was seen as wildly unfashionable for a time. However, the fab foursome has gained a whole new respect in recent years thanks to the success of the stage musical Mamma Mia!, which uses an all-ABBA score. A movie version opens July 18; we're sure McCain will catch it opening weekend.

The jocks also got the politico to drop an even bigger ABBA bomb: Before campaign speeches, he'll listen to the group's Take a Chance on Me to pump himself up.

"Those are the kind of hard-hitting political questions we ask," Berra says.

McCain spokesman Jeff Sadosky says it's not unusual for his boss to make unscheduled calls into radio programs. [...]

If you don't remember the song "Take a Chance on Me", here is ABBA's music video to refresh your memory:



I didn't care much for ABBA when I was a kid, but now it seems nostalgic. And like so many things I didn't care for in my youth, I find myself liking them a lot now.

Regardless of music preferences, John McCain's the best candidate we have, and he's got my vote.