Time And The Swede

A while ago, on Facebook, I stumbled across this photograph of my old Swedish friend Agnetha Fältskog, taken from the first Abba Greatest Hits album of 1975. If you look closely, you will see that inserted into her hand is a copy of her last solo album, A, released in 2013. Both albums, both images, separated by thirty-eight years, stand, in a way, like chronological bookends of a linear journey. Of her linear journey, along that particular period of her life. In between, of course, much has changed. For better, or for worse. Such is life.

I like to think that the photoshopping artist, whoever he or she may be, has, like I, a penchant for both history and continuity, similarly casting an appreciative eye over the progressive journey, yet, also, being cut to the quick by the unstoppable, winnowing effect of time itself.

There is a song on Agnetha’s last album called I Was A Flower. I think some of the lines could also be addressed to Time itself:

I was a flower

Now look what you have done

You’ve made my colours fade

Too close to the sun

Once I was innocent

Beautiful, life had just begun

I was a flower

Now look what you have done

There are some other lines of this song that my daughter sings over and over, like kids do:

But now you walk right through me

Like I’m an empty ghost

Now, when I need you the most

My daughter: a young girl, blossoming and full of life, whiling away her time singing of empty ghosts.

Two chronological bookends of a linear journey, being winnowed along the way.

Damn you, Time. Damn you.