Under Attack Lyrics
Under Attack
SOPHIE:Don't know how to take it
Don't know where to go
My resistance running low
And every day the hold is getting tighter
And it troubles me so
NIGHTMARE CHORUS:
You know that I'm nobody's fool
SOPHIE
I'm nobody's fool and
Yet it's clear to me
I don't have a strategy
It's just like taking candy from a baby
And I think I must be
SOPHIE & NIGHTMARE CHORUS:
Under attack
I'm being taken
About to crack
Defences breaking
Won't somebody please have a heart?
Come and rescue me now
'Cause I'm falling apart
Under attack
I'm taking cover
They're on my track, three Dads,
one lover
Thinking nothing can stop them now
Should I want to
I'm not sure I would know how
SOPHIE:
This is getting crazy
I should tell them so
Really let my anger show
I feel like I was trapped within a
nightmare
I've got nowhere to go.
NIGHTMARE CHORUS:
Still undecided I suppose
SOPHIE:
Yes, it's what I wanted
But I'm scared as well
Staring down the deepest well
I hardly dare to think of what would happen
Where I'd be if I fell
SOPHIE & NIGHTMARE CHORUS:
Under attack
I'm being taken
About to crack
Defences breaking
Won't somebody please have a heart?
Come and rescue me now
'Cause I'm falling apart
Under attack
I'm taking cover
They're on my track, there dads,
one lover
Thinking nothing can stop them now
Should I want to
I'm not sure I would know how
NIGHTMARE CHORUS:
You kinow that I'm nobody's fool
SOPHIE & NIGHTMARE CHORUS:
Under attack
I'm being taken
About to crack
Defences breaking
Won't somebody please have a heart?
Come and rescue me now
'Cause I'm falling apart
Under attack
I'm taking cover
They're on my track, there dads,
one lover
SOPHIE:
Thinking nothing can stop them now
Should I want to
I'm not sure I would know how
Song Overview

Personal Review

“Under Attack” arrives after intermission like a cold front. ABBA released the single in December 1982— their swan-song before a forty-year recording silence—and its synth-rock chill still pricks the skin. Martin Koch’s stage arrangement quickens the tempo to 118 BPM and adds muted bouzouki, but keeps that icy Jupiter-8 arpeggio intact. Onstage, Lisa Stokke sings alone while shadow figures in balaclavas stalk her with handheld searchlights; the taverna morphs into a fever dream. The London press night found me scribbling “Kate Bush meets Eurhythmics in an Aegean panic room”—and the line still fits.
Song Meaning and Annotations

Andersson & Ulvaeus originally wrote “Under Attack” as a final flare from a band unraveling; in Mamma Mia! it becomes Sophie’s panic spiral. The lyric—“My resistance running low”—now speaks to paternal pressure as her secret invitations backfire. Each chorus line (“three dads, one lover”) drops to a minor third, mirroring the tightening vise. Koch underscores the dread with floor-tom rumbles and a prowling bass that quotes the ABBA video’s red-beacon motif .
“Won’t somebody please have a heart? Come and rescue me now ‘cause I’m falling apart.”
The harmony under “rescue me” resolves to the tonic for the first time, a fleeting breath before the synth line snaps back like rubber—hope immediately smothered.
Fun detail: The London production pipes in a vocoder echo on the word “attack,” nodding to Björn’s original vocoder cameo. Fans who know the 1982 warehouse-beacon video grin at the Easter egg.
Verse Highlights
Verse 1
Sophie’s pulse races in triplet vocal figures; strings answer with staccato stabs like heart monitors.
Chorus
The meter shifts to a driving four, percussion layering gated reverb—panic framed as dance.
Verse 2
Lyric pivots from external threat (“three dads, one lover”) to internal free-fall—“staring down the deepest well.” Harmonically the key slips a semitone for eight bars, imitating vertigo.
Song Credits

- Featured: Lisa Stokke (Sophie)
- Producers: Nicholas Gilpin, Martin Koch
- Composers/Lyricists: Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus
- Release Date (cast): November 1 1999
- Genre: Synth-rock / Musical theatre
- Length: 3 min 15 sec (cast) / 3 min 47 sec (ABBA single)
- Instruments: Jupiter-8 synth, bouzouki, electric bass, floor-tom, vocoder
- Label: Polydor / Decca
- Mood: claustrophobic, adrenaline-lit
- Poetic Meter: trochaic quatrains sliced by syncopation
- Copyrights: © 1999 Littlestar Ltd.; ? 1999 Polydor Ltd. (UK)
Songs Exploring Themes of Anxiety & Choice
“Running Up That Hill” – Kate Bush
Bush bargains with a deity while Sophie bargains with destiny; both tracks ride galloping drum machines and synth pads that feel like looming thunderclouds.
“Breathe” – In the Heights
Nina’s panic attack on a Washington Heights fire escape mirrors Sophie’s at the taverna—melismatic gasps over a relentless pulse.
“Pressure” – Billy Joel
Joel’s new-wave piano stabs echo ABBA’s synth riff; each narrator lists threats until the chorus explodes in fatalistic shrug.
Questions and Answers
- Was “Under Attack” really ABBA’s final single?
- Yes—their last widely released single before the 40-year hiatus, issued 3 Dec 1982 in the UK.
- How did it chart?
- UK peak: No 26 according to multiple chart retrospectives; Australia No 96; Austria No 16; Finland No 8.
- Is it a streaming hit today?
- Spotify plays passed 30 million in May 2025—modest next to ABBA titans but impressive for a “farewell” single.
- Why wasn’t it in the 2008 film?
- The movie trims Act II pacing; “Under Attack” was storyboarded but dropped during pre-shoot script edits.
- What’s with the warehouse beacons in the ABBA video?
- Director Kjell Sundvall wanted literal “attack” imagery; the red rotating beacons echo emergency sirens while the band walks into darkness—visualising a goodbye.
Awards and Chart Positions
• UK Singles Chart peak: No 26 (Dec 1982)
• Finnish Singles: No 8
• Austria Ö3: No 16
• Global streams: 30 million Spotify plays (May 2025)
How to Sing?
Range: B?3–E?5 for Sophie.
Breath: Hit the opening eight-note run on one glide; think sprint start, then settle into the ride cymbal’s hiss.
Tempo: 118 BPM; subdivide in sixteenths to stay locked with the sequencer.
Tone: Keep consonants percussive—attack the “k” in “attack”—but let vowels widen on “heart” and “rescue” to soften the plea.