I Keep Them On the Floor Beside My Bed

Album: A (2013)
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Songfacts®:

  • Fältskog closes her fifth studio album, A, with this song where she sings of scattering photos of an old lover across her bedroom floor as she wonders what happened to their relationship. The former ABBA singer co-penned the tune with songwriter/producer Jorgen Elofsson (Britney Spears, Kelly Clarkson, Celine Dion and Westlife), Fältskog's sole contribution to the set as a composer. "I hadn't written any music for a long, long time," she said. "But I sat at the piano, and suddenly it was there."
  • Asked by the BBC why she doesn't write more, Fältskog said she simply fell out of practice. "During the Abba years the boys were writing nearly all the material and I didn't have any time. They asked me a lot - but when we were at home, I just wanted to be with my children," she said.
    "For this album, we had an idea that maybe I should try to write one song. I didn't want to do more. I'm not that composer that composes every day. But it was very exciting to see if it still worked - and it did!"
  • Fältskog told The Sun that she has to work hard when penning songs. "I write in different ways and I actually wrote this song in French at first, at the piano, just to get the melody out," she said.

    Fältskog added: "I thought it should sound like a nursery song for children. Then I explained to Jorgen how I wanted it to sound and how I came to the lyrics and he said, 'I'm going to help you with the lyrics.'

    "It was the idea of nostalgia and memories that inspired the song," she continued. "I was thinking of photos, mementoes and books that I keep on the floor, as many women do. We look at them and remind ourselves of past memories. So that was the idea and it became a love song."

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