Re: Fernando question -- Griffith University ABB Tribute Group

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Date Posted: 19:20:13 12/03/04 Fri
Author: Lionel Mok
Subject: Re: Fernando question
In reply to: Mike Losee 's message, "Re: Fernando question" on 00:29:40 09/16/03 Tue

I think actually ABBA was not going that far back into history. There's Rio Grande in Spain, there's Rio Grande in Texas, but above all, there's Rio Grande in Bolivia, which was actually crossed by Che Guevara and his Guerrilleros before being captured and executed. Of course there are many details in the song that would not check out with the factual details of that final chapter in Che's history (drums, bugle calls, and that Fernando was portrayed as an ageing survivor of the conflict), but the chilling and ominous atmosphere, the mention of the enemy "getting closer", and the protagonists fighting for "liberty" in "this land" (as opposed to "our land"), would all suggest that it was a very tragic incident that happened not so long time ago. There is of course massive use of poetic licence in that song, like Che becoming Fernando and a living old man, but I can only think of that incident in history that would exactly echo the pathos created in that song. And I don't think ABBA at that time could relate to Mexicans in defense of their homeland or the Spanish civil war. Instead, being children of the raging sixties, they would have had a lot of sympathy with the Argentinian revolutionary.

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Replies:

Re: Fernando question -- Richard, 23:39:51 04/02/06 Sun