Steeltown

Liner Notes		by Stuart Adamson (1996 remasters)
		Things that shape us are rarely acknowledged until the mould is distant and we are cooled. I understand the power of music and had seen its effect long before I knew its language. I knew that a man with a song could be as persuasive as one with a gun, and was much less likely to harm innocent bystanders. As a child I watched people whose traditions denied them any show of emotion, pour out their hearts in song to those they shared a life with. The songs were their love, their longing and caring made public. The music on this record grew out of those people. The alienated, the dispossessed, the exploited, the abused, the people we pass by, the people we are. The songs are very dark and dense, they come from hard times, fearful places. This is the sound of frustration, the words of the powerless, it is hard and brittle, cornered. Hope is replaced by fear and dreams by survival, most of us get by. Here is my home movie, my video diary, where I from, where I am. The recording was done at Polar Studios in Stockholm, owned and used by Abba. Out of the lightness, dark. The circle closes.