Re: Fernando question -- Griffith University ABB Tribute Group

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Date Posted: 23:39:51 04/02/06 Sun
Author: Richard
Subject: Re: Fernando question
In reply to: Lionel Mok 's message, "Re: Fernando question" on 19:20:13 12/03/04 Fri

It refers of course to the mexican revolution 1910. If you consider the lyrics "now we're old and grey Fernando" It obviously refers not to a current event. There were many many border incursions. Rebels could have been going either way (cross the Rio Grande) to fight the Federales, or the US army. Fernando and his friend were Mexican rebels circa 1910. Fighting for "freedon in this land">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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