Video: Broadway performance of “Our Last Summer,” performed by Donna and Harry
(Kelseyabbott1991 2019)
Video: Movie Performance of “Our Last Summer,” performed by Sophie, Sam, Bill, and Harry
(Movieclips 2018)
The lyrics to “Our Last Summer” tell the story of a relationship between two people (Donna and Harry in the musical and the film) and how they spent their time together at the end of the relationship. In the musical, it remains a duet between Donna and Harry as they sing about their time together in Paris. In the movie, in order to add layers into Donna’s daughter Sophie and her relationship with the 3 men who all have the potential to be her father ( ABBA: The Official Site n.d., “In Focus: Our Last Summer – The Indefinable Magic of a Vocal Performance”) the lyrics themselves contradict with the visuals of the film, as Sophie has only met these men and don’t have any memories to look back on with them. Instead, Sophie is creating new memories with Sam, Bill and Harry, and is spending her first summer with her Dads instead of thinking back on the last summer being described in the song. For the Dads, they each get to share with Sophie their own individual memories that they have with her mom, and how they remember their last summer with Donna.