Talk:Fernando (song)

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'Fernando' is not ABBA's best selling Single. Its 6 Million copies were beaten by 'Dancing Queen', which is now on over 7 Million Sales, with Downloads added in. Wikipedia does not even List 'Dancing Queen' on its World's Best Selling Singles Page. This is because it had sold 3 Million by the end of 1976, so Wikipedia thinks that is all it sold.

In fact, it was a USA No.1 in 1977 - so well over a Million USA Sales, from 1977, need to be added in. It was also still in many Countries Top 10's at the start of 1977 - so those 1977 Sales need to be added in. Plus, it sold over 500,000, as a 1992 Re-Issue. As well as over a Million Downloads since 2004/2005. Sadly - as usual - Wikipedia is wrong, when it comes to 'Dancing Queen', & its Global Sales. 86.13.2.211 (talk) 17:02, 6 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A música é baseada na guerra do Paraguai. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.90.145.65 (talk) 02:27, 18 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't call Fernando a big loss in the United States, when you look at their whole track record. ABBA was simply not as popular in the United States when compared to the UK or Australia. Mike H (Talking is hot) 04:06, 14 September 2005 (UTC) He Is Your Brother ans People Need Love were both released as part of the Ring-Ring-LP- That's why I removed that little sentence.[reply]

Frida's version is NOT a cover but the original version! I will change the article a bit.

In case anybody's watching this page, I recently uploaded an ABBA-related question ("Which war, and which crossing of the Rio Grande, is referred to by ABBA's song Fernando?") to Wikipedia:Reference_desk#ABBA's_Fernando. I have already received an answer (one that seems exceptionally plausible), but was wondering whether anybody else is of a different opinion. If we could get this verified, this could be added to the ABBA trivia. -Itai 13:08, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)

The answer you got (

Mexican-American War) agrees with what I've read about it, and my own assumption when I first learned about the war, already knowing the song at the time. Graham

23:19, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Well, OK. But where and when would "two old revolutionaries in Mexico...reminiscing" be sitting? Presumably some time after a revolution! There is the Mexican Revolution of 1910, but the song also mentions the Rio Grande, which ceased to be Mexican territory following the war with the US. So even if the song wasn't consciously referencing a particular event when it was written, it was implicitly referring to the war. I suppose it's a bit like Kate Bush's song "Oh England, My Lionheart" isn't consciously about the second word war, but with its references to Spitfires, etc, it can only mean that conflict implicitly. Graham 22:12, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I find this discussion to be about as meaningful as the Folsom Prison Blues#The Folsom Prison Conundrum argument. If the composure creates a non-historic vision that implies some minor logical inconsistancy, then it falls under "artistic license". -- 67.116.253.187 04:22, 29 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have gone ahead and removed all the speculation to specific wars since the artists claim that no such relationship exists. -- 67.116.253.187 04:30, 29 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I had always assumed that the war referenced to in the song was the Spanish Civil War (there is a Rio Grande in Spain) and that the Fernando of the song was either

The original request to the reference desk is now at

Mexican revolution to a remark about the Spanish Civil War

.

--The very model of a minor general (talk) 00:05, 6 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

People here should probably start reading about the Mexican revolution. The events are probably about Madero's crossing of the Rio Grande in 1911 or Pancho Villa's crossing of the Rio Grande on On March 6, 1913 (from Texas to Chihuahua) after hearing of Madero's murder by Huerta's lackeys. The Rio Grande, is, of course on the Mexican-American border; it forms a natural border, in fact 90.210.103.109 (talk) 02:46, 18 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Broadly speaking it would seem to be an incident in the

Note: Some of the above was written before I noticed that 'the war between Texas and Mexico' citation dates from 1994, which may or may not partly or entirely invalidate some of my own speculations above (but I don't think that should matter too much, as my speculations, like everybody else's, are largely irrelevant anyway, unless backed by reliable sources). Tlhslobus (talk) 05:51, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

To make things even more complicated, Ulvaeus, according to his bio article, has been suffering from severe long-term memory loss (the extent of which is disputed, and it is not clear how long the problem has existed, tho presumably he had it for some time before he went public about it in 2008, if only because it takes time to notice such problems). And he has seemingly given different accounts, perhaps as a result of those memory problems. For instance, our quote for "the war between Texas and Mexico" is from 1994 (though quite likely this was not the first time he talked about the subject), but this article mentions a December 2008 interview (so well after he has begun to have memory problems, tho for all we know he may already have had these in 1994 as well) in which "the war between Texas and Mexico" seemingly doesn't get mentioned (or at least the article doesn't refer to it) but now 1910 is mentioned, along with Zapata (but not the guy whom our article had been mentioning) along with a denial that it referred to any specific incident in the Revolution. I think I'll now leave it to others to decide how to deal with all this in a way that is not OR and does not mislead our readers.Tlhslobus (talk) 05:44, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The article you cite states “According to an interview he gave in December 2008 in Australia, Ulvaeus was painting a picture of two war veterans reliving their past when they were young fighters under Emiliano Zapata in a battle of the Mexican Revolution of 1910. Apparently Ulvaeus thought the original lyrics were too boring and sought a story line that matched the name ‘Fernando’. He said he made the story up, it is not based on anything that actually occurred during the Mexican Revolution.” Zapata joined Madero's campaign against President Diaz. Madero turned his back on the revolutionaries that supported him, was overthrown by the dictator Huerta, and was assassinated. From the point of view of revolutionaries at the time and the construction of historical memory of the Revolution, the Huerta regime was without any positive aspects. This is all well documented.Work permit (talk) 07:07, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. At least a claim based on that article would no longer be simply OR. But I'm not sure whether we can simply treat that article as a Reliable Source per

WP:RS, either in general or in this specific instance (and our rules require that the source has to be reliable in the relevant instance), particularly given its failure to mention relevant facts such as the memory loss and the apparent change of story. However it probably is reliable regarding what was said in the interview, and can probably be used as such, provided we warn our readers, by dating the Mexico-Texas war claim ('In 1994'), by mentioning the 2008 memory loss admission (backed by citations copied from his bio article), and then adding that 'in an interview in December of that year he reportedly stated that ...' (the word 'reportedly' can presumably be omitted if we have some more reliable sources for the reported contents of that interview). I may try to do all this myself, but not just yet, so any other editor should please feel free to have a go instead of me.Tlhslobus (talk) 13:13, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply

]

Incidentally, although we can't mention it unless we can find a RS to say so (but it still seems relevant to our attempts at assessing the reliability of his apparently changed story in 2008), his 2008 claim may also be trying to counter his 1994 claim about 'the war between Texas and Mexico' as something rather embarrassing, whichever way one looks at it. Either Fernando 'treasonably' was a Mexican 'Uncle Tom' supporting the Texan 'gringos' in their fight for freedom from Mexico in 1835-36 (and/or again in 1842), or (more likely, given that he lost), his (and the singer's) idea of 'fighting for freedom' seems to be trying to force Texans at gunpoint to stay Mexican against their will (or it could just possibly even be seen, rightly or wrongly, as hinting at an even more embarrassingly politically incorrect idea - how in the US Civil War of 1861-65 the North's successful 'fight for freedom' involved forcing Texans and other White Southerners at gunpoint to stay in the Union against their will). Either way it would be understandable if Ulvaeus wanted us to forget about this. Which is perhaps a good reason for us carefully wording our article as 'Ulvaeus said' rather than as fact.Tlhslobus (talk) 13:50, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Also, even if we eventually accept at face value what he reportedly said in 2008 about 1910, it would still be misleading OR for us to tie the song to a specific incident, such as the crossing of the Rio Grande that began the 1910 Revolution (as we were doing), since in 2008 he reportedly explicitly says that the song is not tied to any specific incident in that Revolution.Tlhslobus (talk) 18:47, 5 July 2018 (UTC

About the only thing we can be certain about is that the haunting song involves patriotic participants in a revolutionary situation crossing a large river :). Repeated references to drums might be a clue though. Diaz's federales, garrisoning Cuidad Juarez in 1910 when Madero and his supporters "crossed the Rio Grande", still used them - in contrast to the more modern armies of the Spanish Civil War. But in the absence of more specific source references let's assume that Fernando and friend just represent many nostalgic old veterans of many old wars. Buistr (talk) 23:54, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I believe the reference to the Rio Grande would place the revolutionaries in or around Mexico. The Río Grande (Lugo) river in Spain was really of no consequence in the Spanish revolution. Beyond that, I really am uncertain on what he meant. Ulvaeus 1994 quote of the Texans and Mexicans fighting would allude to the

Border War (1910–19) and specifically when Pancho Villa attacked the American border town of Columbus, New Mexico. His later quote on Mexican Revolution of 1910 would allude to Madero's crossing the Rio grande, yet he mentions Zapata (who was no where near the border). Personally, I think he had a very vague knowledge of the Mexican revolution. Perhaps he just threw in the Rio Grande because it rhymed with "your hand" and "this land". In the end, we don't know. I fully agree with your deletion of Madero statement. Work permit (talk) 02:26, 6 July 2018 (UTC)[reply

]

Those do not exactly sound like flutes at the opening of the song. Does anyone know for sure what those instruments are? The sound more like a metal panpipe or even a penny whistle-like instrument to me. -- 67.116.253.187 04:53, 29 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It is similar to the instruments in Simon and Garfunkel's El Cóndor Pasa or perhaps a pan flute, but I thought I saw an ABBA video with one or two instrumentalists playing a straight-on metal instrument (like a soprano sax but obviously a whistle, not a reed). -- 67.116.253.187 05:18, 29 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I removed the sentence about the "usage error" in the English lyrics. To say "Since many years I haven't seen x" is perfectly good (although slightly old-fashioned) English usage.