The day before you came.

There were many theories, who the "You" was. But I guess she's talking about a man, who turned her dull life upside down, made her realize how trivial it had been… It's not on a happy note she reflects on it as he's gone again and she's facing the fact that she will lead the same kind of life as before she met him and she's now well aware that it wasn't any good. As for the second question… I think that "opening her front door at 8 o'clock" doesn't mean she arrived home so late. She just went out to buy some "Chinese food to go" just to get back in time to watch Dallas ;-)

That’s a bit unfair? Belgium and the Netherlands were the most loyal of ABBA markets and you pretty much made anything number one. Even Head Over Heels, one of only two countries to even make it top 10 within the ones covered by the Wikipedia ABBA discography. So, compared to Head Over Heels at number one (second single from The Visitors, after the album release), a number 5 [edit - later correction: number 3] placing for The Day Before You Came (a brand new single) is STILL a decline. Head Over Heels was number 25 in the UK, so The Day Before You Came at 32 is relatively comparable with the Netherlands.

And in the UK, Under Attack did better at number 26, whereas in the Netherlands it did worse than its predecessor, at number 7.

We assumed that this ABBA announcement was something “huge” as was claimed, such as a worldwide release of unreleased track(s). The fact that we thought the BBC had the exclusive on the reveal was entirely coincidental. Nothing whatsoever with being UK-centric. We just hoped that the BBC had been chosen as the platform for a major announcement, but had it been anywhere else it would have made no difference.

But, in any case, it wasn’t to be.

It wasn't an ABBA announcement. It was a person from BBC Radio 2 annoucement. BTW: "The day before you came" peaked at 3 in Holland.  And "Under attack"at 5.

I know you’re right on this, johnny, as I’ve read it before but for those of us that don’t understand the logic, why are the chart positions different? And which is “official”? I’m assuming the one that has Head Over Heels at number one, being as it’s the one Wikipedia uses.

Is it like the UK “network” chart (as it was once known - no idea what it’s called now, or even if it still exists) compared with the official chart?

If I remember correctly the Dutch Top 100 (National Hitparade) was more based on pure sales and the Dutch Top 40 also took other aspects into account (airplay, overall popularity).

Looks like those are The Day Before You Came chart positions. First number a reference (wikipedia?), second chart peak.

You’ve missed the point entirely, Tiger76. No one was slamming The Day Before You Came. The point that was being made that it’s supposed to be the nation’s favourite ABBA song, not fans giving five votes to one song (though that is allowed).

And there was no hostile reaction to janabbafan’s post, but again they were missing the point, and expressed what I considered to be anti-UK sentiment when it was uncalled for, and therefore I defended the forum. Worse, they thought they were agreeing with Hometime, when he made no such comments, he was merely stating a fact.

If you don’t post much on here and then come on with an attitude, expect to be responded to in the same manner.

In any case, I do like Two For The Price of One (and The Day Before You Came for that matter) so if your comment was aimed at me, it misfired.

Also, the forum is actually Australian and the admin is from that part of the world. OK, still Anglosphere or whatever you’d want to call it, but, hey, it’s an English-language forum!