Many people know that Don McLean's song American Pie is a tribute to Buddy Holly and to the two musicians who died with him in that fatal plane crash, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper. The entire song is riddled with references to them, and to the musical scene at that time, in the late 50s - McLean felt that pop music had lost its simplicity, purity and ``danceability'' since then, and the song doubles as a lament for the lost Rock 'n' Roll.
What's not so widely appreciated is that ABBA's Knowing Me, Knowing You is also an appreciation of Holly and a lament for the loss of the work he never produced. What follows is a line-by-line exposition of the true meaning of this 70s classic.
Mostly self-explanatory, this verse simply expresses ABBA's sadness at the loss of Buddy Holly.
So far as the Swedish songsters are concerned, ``this is goodbye''; the ``story'' of classic pop music ``ends'', leaving behind only the ``empty house'' of 60s psychedelia and 70s prog-rock, where the ``tears'' of unnecessarily complex time signatures and non-functional harmony cascade down the ``cheeks'' of the decaying music scene.
The irony here, of course, is that it was ABBA themselves who in the late 70s were largely responsible for restoring pop music to its former glories.
To ABBA, knowing both themselves and Buddy Holly as they do, the reflection is a source of profound anguish - the phrase usually translated as ``Ah-ha'' would be better rendered as ``Aaaaarrrrrrrgh!!'', which is the connotation it carries in the original Swedish.
... the loss of Holly is irrevocable; and yet, despite claiming that there is nothing they can do, in the the very act of creating ``Knowing Me, Knowing You'', ABBA did more than they could have dreamed towards commemorating his life and work.
The subtle use of incremental repetition augments the sense of anguish.
Indeed, in the face of this anguish, can there be any point in continuing to perform? ABBA seem here to be questioning the validity and significance of their own art.
In this passage, incremental repetition is pushed to and beyond its logical extreme, frankly rather spoiling the effect.
Oh, I can't go on with this charade.
It's just a song already!