Not That One Friday #2: No Doubt About It

Remember that time Errol Brown had a Number 2 hit with a song about a Close Encounter of the Third Kind? 

No Doubt About It was that song... yet, perhaps, just like me, you never actually listened that closely to the lyrics and thought it was just another hot, chocolaty love song?

What kind of magnetism kept me in this place?

Was it out of my control?

What was this ship from outer space?

What was this creature that appeared before my eyes?

Was it good?

Was it evil?

On this ship from other skies?

Of course, this being the 80s, if you'd ever seen the video, you wouldn't have been left with much doubt about it...

A hard act to beat, surely?

Unless you're ABBA.

Yes, I'm still very much enjoying that ABBA reunion album, Voyage. And the more I get into it, the more I'm surprised by how many songs on there are about long term relationships struggling to stay together. There's a really maturity to the songwriting that you don't often hear in pure pop songs, which are normally obsessed only with young love.

(There's another song on the album, I Can Be That Woman, which looks at the breakdown of the marriage through the eyes of a pet dog. Which really shouldn't work. Which Sting has already proved really shouldn't work. Except... ABBA show us how it should be done. Bloody incredible that it works, but it does.)

Anyway, here's another mature relationships lyric. This being ABBA, of course, the tune is so upbeat and so poppy, it would be very easy to miss the genius of the lyrics. Just as, for many years, I missed the aliens in the Hot Chocolate.

He says with forbearance in his eyes

Most couples we know are able to compromise

He's too good for me, that's one thing I know for sure

If that's true, why do I let it upset me?

There I go, stomping my feet like a child

But he is a good man

He tries to understand why I freak out

He worries, and I know, it's an honest reaction

I messed it up, alright

And there's no doubt about it

I had to pick this fight

I'd have gone mad without it

Hissing like a wild cat when I should be purring

But you know me

This isn't where it ends

I could make amends