So one of the Discography Runs I did recently was as I mentioned in another post; ABBA
Now this has been a long time coming, I've meant to do it for years. However, it feels like the me who's slowly approaching Thirty-Three in about a week? Is the perfect person to have experienced The Visitors for the first time.
It's such a particular mood. It's a group who knows time is up. Now a lot of ABBA's music is definitely melancholic underneath all the poppy hooks. This album just brings that to the forefront. Tracks like "One of Us"and "When All is Said and Done" brim with it.
Only somebody who's met "The One" at least a few times in their life, only for things to fall apart can appreciate a line like
"Thanks for all your generous love and thanks for all the fun
Neither you nor I'm to blame when all is said and done"
The one that's stuck with me though? It's "Slipping Through My Fingers" a song that reflects on the feelings of parents who feel like their child is growing up too fast and life has passed them by.
That's a theme that also easily applies to myself and my own bittersweet regret of not having the knowledge or bravery to transition sooner.
"The feeling that I'm losing her forever
And without really entering her world
I'm glad whenever I can share her laughter
That funny little girl"
There are many days I wonder who that girl would've been. What would she have worn to school? Who would she have had crushes on? Would her hair have not thinned out on top? Would she have had the strength to be a girl in the 00's?
Would she actually know how liquid eyeliner works!?
A lot of questions and feelings.
That girl is me...but it's also not. I lost a childhood to not knowing what was possible for me but that's also who I fight and continue to live for.
Anyway...go listen to The Visitors. It's highly underrated and deserves so much more love than it gets
Coming back to this post again for a little thing.
There's an essay in this free gift book called "Unknown Pleasures: 20 great lost albums rediscovered" from the long defunct magazine, Melody Maker, about The Visitors by the music journalist Taylor Parkes.
I have desperately been trying to find it for ages now, as both I really want to read it but also I'm a fan of Chart Music, a podcast about episodes of Top of the Pops which Taylor is a regular guest host on.
In my search I've been able to find evidence that at some point a scan was on imageshack
However, all the links on this tweet are dead (or imageshack is a broken mess. Both may be true) and the account hasn't tweeted in about three years.
I know that it's unlikely, but if anyone out there somewhere has the scans of this essay? I'd be over the moon. Hell if anyone has the book it deserves to be scanned in as it seems to be lost media at this point with only a few essays making their way out.
HOLY SHIT BIG FUCKING UPDATE!
I was scouring forum posts again and someone THIS YEAR uploaded a full scan of this book!
Shared with Dropbox
I can finally read the Taylor Parkes piece on The Visitors 😭
I'm gonna cry 😢
Fucking hell I can't believe it
