The complications of multinational pop: This song first emerges as a Swedish-language solo recording by Frida. In this trax, she gives comfort to an old man whose sweetheart has passed away. Once it became clear the trax was going to be a big hit, the song fans out into both Spanish and English versions. The Spanish version, with lyrics by RCA-Argentina employee Mary McCluskey, is the weaker of the two: here, ABBA sings to a man who has seen war and has survived because of the “protection” of the stars. The English version, with lyrics by Björn, is far more intriguing and risky: now Fernando and the singer are veterans of a fight for “liberty” across the “Rio Grande” river. Björn eventually will claim that the song is about Zapata during the Mexican Revolution, but this makes no sense: Zapata’s forces never entered U.S. territory. On the other hand, Pancho Villa crossed the border several times, as did General Mariano Arista at the start of the War of North American Invasion (known to the north as the Mexican-American War). It’s finally possible to hear the track as a fantasy Reconquista, through immigration or at the point of gun barrel, with the stars aligned for the future downfall of the white interlopers. Thus, the Spanish version appears to be a sop to Latin American political and market forces. But this still fails to explain how the English language version turn into a Samuel P. Huntington fantasy.