Agnetha Faltskog

470. ABBA – Super Trouper (1980)

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The Intro

Although ABBA still had a few years left in the tank, Super Trouper was their ninth and last number 1 to date. What a run. This is the story of their last chart-topper, their final act and their triumphant return as avatars in the 21st century.

Before

Super Trouper was the final track that Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus wrote for their seventh LP. Unusually, the album was already to have that name, which it shares with a type of stage spotlight once for large venues, that was once considered the brightest in the world. This song had the working title of Blinka Lilla Stjärna (Swedish for Twinkle Little Star), but as Andersson and Ulvaeus noticed how well the album title fitted with the chorus, so it became Super Trouper, and it replaced Put On Your White Sombrero to become the title track.

Although not as obvious as The Winner Takes It All, the song features references to Ulvaeus and Agnetha Fältskog’s marriage coming to an end. In the first verse, ‘I was sick and tired of everything/When I called you last night from Glasgow’ referred to Ulvaeus missing his then-wife during promo work in the Scottish city. With this in mind, and the song’s central theme of a pop star who wants to get off the road and be with his loved one, you can consider Super Trouper a rather poignant goodbye to Fältskog from Ulvaeus. However, if that was the intention, it’s half-hidden and mixed in with the conceit of the pop star knowing that somewhere in the crowd is the one they love.

Review

Super Trouper is a suitably great way for ABBA to bow out of this blog. It’s classic ABBA, featuring a beautiful plaintive piano melody from Andersson and a yearning sound to the verses, before turning into a mix of synth-disco and schlager music for the chorus – the latter coming from the backing vocals. I’m not normally a fan of ABBA when they dip into schlager, but it’s irresistibly catchy here.

Lasse Hallström’s videos are usually reliably interesting, and Super Trouper is no exception. It features their biggest cast yet – a circus troupe, as displayed on the sleeve art, shown above. Mostly, it’s ABBA performing in front of loads of disco lights, interspersed with an annoyingly frequent moustachioed man controlling a ‘super trouper’, a very badly animated Andersson and an amazingly horrible jumper sported by Anni-Frid Lyngstad.

After

Super Trouper made ABBA the fourth biggest act for UK chart-toppers ever, with nine, behind only The Beatles, Elvis Presley and Cliff Richard. They held this position until Madonna went to number 1 with Music in 2000. They now share the eighth spot for most number 1s with the Spice Girls and Rihanna. This single is their second biggest selling in the UK, behind only Dancing Queen.

It was one of the biggest singles of Christmas 1980, and may have perhaps even made it to Christmas number 1 had John Lennon not been murdered while it was top of the hit parade. It even spawned a famous festive Woolworth advert one year later.

ABBA followed up Super Trouper with another classic, Lay All Your Love on Me, which peaked at seven. It was, at the time, the biggest-selling 12″ ever.

1981 was an eventful year for the group. Ulvaeus remarried in January, and Andersson and Lyngstad divorced, followed by Andersson remarrying that November. The same month saw the release of The Visitors, which was to be ABBA’s last album for 40 years. With lyrics exploring the Cold War and the complexities relationships, it was their most mature work yet. The lead single, One of Us, peaked at three and was their last top 10 single for 40 years.

In 1982 ABBA released a compilation, over-optimistically titled The Singles: The First Ten Years, which included the acclaimed new single The Day Before You Came. Their last public appearance together for many years was on Noel Edmonds’ The Late, Late Breakfast Show that year. The group never officially announced they had split, and even denied for some time, but Fältskog and Lyngstad worked on solo albums, while Ulvaeus and Andersson began working with Tim Rice on the musical Chess.

10 years after ABBA’s last singles, some of their most popular songs were at number 1 thanks to synth-pop duo Erasure, who released their Abba-esque EP and helped kickstart an irony laden ABBA revival in the 90s, that has never really gone away. This was thanks also in no small part to the release one of the bestselling compilations of all-time – ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits, the same year. Westlife’s cover of I Have a Dream, paired up with Seasons in the Sun, was the final UK number 1 of the 20th century.

Fältskog, Lyngstad, Ulvaeus and Andersson were not seen in public together again until the Stockholm premiere of the musical Mamma Mia! in 2005. In the same month, Madonna released Hung Up, featuring a sample of Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight), which became her 11th chart-topper. Three years later, Mamma Mia! became a film, and although ABBA were together again for the premiere, they said they would never reform as a band.In 2016, the ice began to thaw. ABBA briefly appeared on stage again at a private party to mark 50 years since their songwriters first met. That year, Simon Fuller also announced a new project – ABBAtars – which would feature the group in avatar form. Two years later – the same year as musical sequel Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again was released – ABBA shocked the world. At last, they were to release new songs, to coincide with a TV special. However, the programme was cancelled, but although the next few years saw plans delayed in large part due to COVID-19, news of further new material leaked.

Finally in 2021, ABBA released a new album. Voyage was preceded by the singles I Still Have Faith in You and Don’t Shut Me Down. Although, perhaps surprisingly, they didn’t return to number 1 in the UK singles chart, the country, like the rest of the world, were much in need of reconnecting with one of the most popular bands of all time. Perhaps wisely, the group adopted a different approach to promotion. The long-awaited avatar project came to fruition, with a concert residency inside ABBA Arena, a custom-built venue at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London. ABBA were immortalised just as they looked in 1979, but with newly recorded vocals, as motion capture digital avatars, backed by a 10-piece band, edited by one of former housemates when I was at university, which boggled my mind when I found out. ABBA’s fans had the opportunity to relive their favourite songs, and if they were to close their eyes or suspend their imagination, ABBA were back in their glory. Andersson confirmed in 2022 that this would be the final ABBA project. In 2023 their longtime guitarist, the unsung Lasse Wellander, died at the age of 70.

The Outro

For many years, I was turned off by ABBA. I found much of their work too cheesy, over-rated and prone to being covered by a range of awful groups (Erasure were not one of them. Westlife, they definitely were). Their schlager music left me cold, even if I recognised Dancing Queen as a classic.

One benefit of this blog is the way it has helped shed new light on artists I might previously have rejected. ABBA are one of those. Some of their 70s number 1s helped raise the bar among some seriously lacklustre chart-toppers, particularly in 1976. And it’s perhaps only with the passing of time and certain experiences that you can appreciate that underlying or often blatant sadness at the heart of some truly amazing and even painful songwriting. I was, frankly, a fool to under-appreciate ABBA. I am prone to being a music slob, and questioning the British public for buying records I’d have run a mile from. In ABBA’s case, I have been well and truly humbled.

What far-reaching effect the concept of avatar concerts may have in years to come on other, perhaps long dead musical acts, remains to be seen.

The Info

Written & produced by

Benny Andersson & Björn Ulvaeus

Weeks at number 1

3 (29 November-19 December)

Trivia

Births

6 December: Footballer Steve Lovell
7 December: Footballer John Terry
8 December: Actor Nick Nevern
15 December: Actor Neil McDermott/Kasabian guitarist Sergio Pizzorno
16 December: Actor Michael Jobson

Deaths

29 November: Historian Joel Hurstfield
2 December: Labour Party MP Patrick Gordon Walker
3 December: British Union of Fascists leader Oswald Mosley
4 December: Cricketer Geoffrey Cooke
6 December: Novelist Margot Bennett
8 December: Beatles singer-songwriter John Lennon (see ‘Meanwhile…’)
10 December: Writer Philip MacDonald
11 December: Novelist Margaret Malcolm
12 December: Businessman Sir Jules Thorn
13 December: Anthropologist John Morris/Labour Party MP Harry Pursey
14 December: Physician Sir Weldon Dalrymple-Champneys, 2nd Baronet/Scottish cricketer Forbes Jones
16 December: Jazz trombonist Keith Christie/film director Peter Collins
17 December: Artist Elsie Few
18 December: Writer Ben Travers

Meanwhile…

8 December: The UK joined the world in mourning the unexpected and shocking loss of John Lennon, founder of The Beatles and only 40 when shot dead by Mark Chapman outside the Dakota, his home in New York.

14 December: Thousands of fans mourned Lennon in Liverpool, his birthplace, with a 10-minute vigil.

18 December: Labour leader Michael Foot got off to a promising start in his new role, with a MORI poll showing his party leading the Conservatives by 24 points.

419. ABBA – Take a Chance on Me (1978)

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The Intro

ABBA broke Slade’s record for most UK number 1s in the 70s with this, their seventh. A return to the uplifting pop that made their name, Take a Chance on Me is one of their biggest anthems.

Before

The Swedish superstars released their fifth and most ambitious LP to date, ABBA: The Album in December 1977. It came out in conjunction with ABBA: The Movie, a docu-drama about their Australian tour. It also stars Tom Oliver, better known these days as Lou Carpenter in Neighbours, as their bodyguard.

The album’s second track and second single, Take a Chance on Me was recorded 15 August 1977 at Marcus Music Studio. Its origins lay in Björn Ulvaeus’ love of jogging. To pace himself he would repeat a ‘tck-a-ch’ rhythm to himself and found it so catchy, he and Benny Andersson set it to music and originally called it Billy Boy. Andersson wasn’t a fan of ‘We could go dancing, we can go walking, as long as we’re together’ but relented in the end. Unusually, Take a Chance on Me is mainly keyboard and synthesiser-led by Andersson. Ulvaeus only plays an acoustic guitar this time. Session musicians on this are drummer Roger Palm, Malando Gassama on percussion and Rutger Gunnarsson on bass.

Review

Now that I’m a little more aware of how ABBA’s songs developed, I’m really interested in Take a Chance on Me‘s place in their discography. Knowing Me, Knowing You was a bleak look at the end of a relationship and The Name of the Game a reticent chance of potential love. This seventh number 1 turns their last chart-topper on its head and now Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Agnetha Fältskog are urging someone to give their love another chance. There’s no pleading, no begging, no tears. They’re merely asking someone who sounds to have panicked to change their mind and give it a whirl, as what’s the worst that could happen?

Suitably, the music propelling Take a Chance on Me is upbeat and it’s their most life-affirming pop single since the magnificent Dancing Queen. The jogging rhythm is so effective, you wonder how nobody ever thought of it before. Was it a nod to Kraftwerk’s Trans Europe Express? Combined with the ‘ba-ba-ba-ba-ba’, it’s a very effective double whammy and when the two are given full prominence at the song’s close, it’s a dizzying display of pop brilliance. Having said that, the verses are reminiscent of The Name of the Game, with a slow, slinky disco groove to give chance to recover from the incredibly infectious chorus. The spoken word bits are cheesy but they just about get away with it. The supercool may scoff at the almost Europop ‘oompah’ synths but I’m having none of it. I’m a fan of this one.

The video is also good fun. Each band member gets a square to sing inside, which is reminiscent of the opening titles of The Brady Bunch. Then Frida and Agnetha are trying to persuade glum-looking Björn and Benny in a minimalistic white studio which occasionally switches to black. It’s another iconic ABBA moment.

After

This marked the end of ABBA’s very impressive run of UK number 1s in the 70s. I’d imagine it was pretty satisfying to knock copycats Brotherhood of Man from their perch too. It also topped many other charts and went top 10 in the US. The hits of course continued, even as their relationships soured. Two more number 1s would be notched up before their demise.

The Outro

14 years later Take a Chance on Me was back at number 1 courtesy of synth-pop duo Erasure. Their Abba-esque EP was their only chart-topper and was partly responsible for the ABBA revival of the 90s, for better or worse. Since then it’s been memorably sang by Steve Coogan as Alan Partridge and Julie Walters in the hit film Mamma Mia!. So I’m told. I’ll never watch it.

The Info

Written, produced & arranged by

Benny Andersson & Björn Ulvaeus

Weeks at number 1

3 (18 February-10 March)

Meanwhile…

18 February: 20 suspects are arrested in connection with the La Mon restaurant bombing by the IRA.

20 February: Severe blizzards hit the south west of England.

8 March: Douglas Adams’ cult sci-fi series The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was first broadcast by BBC Radio 4. 

415. ABBA – The Name of the Game (1977)

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The Intro

ABBA’s impressive run of chart-toppers continued with this, their sixth. The Name of the Game can be seen as the sequel to their previous number 1, Knowing Me, Knowing You and it shows their continuing progression into serious, mature pop.

Before

In May 1977 the Swedish superstars began work on their fifth studio LP, ABBA: The Album. Concurrently, they filmed ABBA: The Movie, a docu-drama featuring many of the songs from that album. The first release from the forthcoming album was The Name of the Game. Originally known as A Bit of Myself, it was also the first song to be completed in the sessions.

If Knowing Me, Knowing You was a tragic look at the end of love, The Name of the Game is a tentative sign of a blossoming new romance. Agnetha Fältskog and Frida Lyngstad are singing from the point of view of an ‘impossible case’ wondering whether she can let a new man into her heart. They’ve seen each other twice within a week and she can already feel her defences dropping. So what is the name of the game? Is it love, or is he messing her about?

Review

The Name of the Game isn’t the best ABBA song, but it’s still decent. For me, the best part is that reggae-sounding walking bass that opens proceedings. It was apparently inspired by slowing down the bass in Stevie Wonder’s I Wish from Songs in the Key of Life (1976). Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus were heavily inspired by Wonder’s peak creative period in the mid-70s. It’s unusual to hear ABBA doing funk, but it’s welcome and it suits the hesitant seriousness of the song.

There’s something slightly disjointed here – ABBA were very good at overloading their best material with catchy hooks that complemented each other, but it doesn’t quite work this time. Before researching this song, I could only remember the chorus, I thought the verses were from a totally different song, which makes this an unusually unmemorable one. But it’s an interesting continuation of their maturing outlook on pop, which of course would coincide with the failing of relationships within the band.

After

As usual, Lasse Hallström created the video to the single. The theme of the song was taken extremely literally this time. Hallström simply took the premise of gameplay and had Björn, Benny, Agnetha and Frida playing a board game. The game in question is Fia-spel, a Scandinavian variant of Ludo.

The Outro

ABBA were by this point regularly scoring number 1s across Europe, so it may have come as a surprise to them and their label that they only topped the UK chart this time around. The Name of the Game marked the end of an era as it was the last time their manager Stig Anderson was involved in the lyrics of an ABBA single.

The Info

Written by

Benny Andersson, Stig Anderson & Björn Ulvaeus

Producers

Benny Andersson & Björn Ulvaeus

Weeks at number 1

4 (5 November-2 December)

Trivia

Births

22 November: Footballer Michael Preston

Deaths

10 November: Writer Dennis Wheatley
30 November: Playwright Terence Rattigan

Meanwhile…

14 November: Firefighters take part in their first ever national strike, in the hope of getting a 30% wage increase.

15 November: The first SavaCentre hypermarket, a joint venture between Sainsbury’s and British Home Stores, opens at Washington, Tyne and Wear.

22 November: British Airways inaugurates their regular London to New York City Concorde service.

403. ABBA – Knowing Me, Knowing You (1977)

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The Intro

Following the rightful success of one of the greatest singles of all time – namely Dancing Queen, ABBA were becoming superstars. They followed it up with another of their most famous songs. But Money, Money, Money didn’t become their fifth UK number 1, narrowly missing out by peaking at two. Their fourth album Arrival was chock full of hits though and was mined further.

Before

Knowing Me, Knowing You was recorded on 23 March 1976 at Metronome Studios. It marked a turning point in the band’s career. Gone was the jollity and Europop stylings of Waterloo. This was where things got interesting. Although we’re not at the point in which the two couples were getting divorced, relations in the band had become strained. As Björn Ulvaeus wrote the lyrics, you would imagine he and Agnetha Fältskog were already having problems. Originally the song had the working title Ring It In and then the prophetic Number 1, Number 1. As with most tracks on Arrival, it featured Rutger Gunnarsson on bass (he also looked after the string arrangement) and Ola Brunkert on drums.

Review

I’ve always been more interested in the soap opera-style drama behind ABBA than the majority of the songs I’ve heard by them. It’s fascinating that a superstar group of two couples could end up cataloguing their breakups so poignantly. Give me that over the cheesiness of their early years anytime. So I’m a big fan of Knowing Me, Knowing You.

‘No more carefree laughter’, the opening line, is a very effective signpost that ABBA were in trouble, despite years of success still to come. Anni-Frid Lyngstad takes the lead here and she commits a great performance, documenting her walk through a silent, empty house alone, remembering the good times. Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson’s production fits the glacially cold mood perfectly (as does the opening of the video, the sun beaming down in the winter snow) and then the chorus is ABBA at their best.

Somehow, despite years of association with Steve Coogan’s immortal comic character Alan Partridge, you can still hear it and be impressed, not amused at the fact the chat show host adopted such an inappropriate song as his catchphrase. It stands head and shoulders above any of the other 1977 number 1s so far. It also captures the sadness of the inevitability of the split. They know each other so well, she can see there is no going back this time – ‘this time we’re through’.

Great backing vocals from Ulvaeus too, echoing Frida’s sentiment well. Just to remind us ABBA haven’t totally given up on glam, there’s a very memorable solo after the choruses, with Ulvaeus coming over all Mick Ronson. Fältskog interjects in verse two with some sexy whispering. To be fair Fältskog could make anything sexy, even divorce. I realise that, speaking as someone who likes to point out how he doesn’t generally get all the fuss about ABBA, I’ve had nothing but high praise indeed for the last two singles I’ve covered. Andersson also looked back in 2004 and called them some of ABBA’s greatest work.

One thing that doesn’t get mentioned about ABBA is how iconic their videos are. Knowing Me, Knowing You was, like most, directed by future Academy Award nominee Lasse Hallström. Simple, yet effective, those shots of the members confronting each other face-to-face or back-to-back are as memorable as the song itself.

After

Knowing Me, Knowing You was rightly one of the biggest-selling songs in the UK of 1977 and began a second run of three consecutive chart-toppers in a row for Benny, Björn, Frida and Agnetha. It’s been covered by a diverse range of acts including Cilla Black, A-Teens and Right Said Fred. And as already mentioned, it took on a whole new life as the theme tune to Knowing Me, Knowing You… with Alan Partridge, the radio and TV series that introduced us to one of the greatest comedy characters of all time.

The Info

Written by

Benny Andersson, Stig Anderson & Björn Ulvaeus

Producers

Benny Andersson & Björn Ulvaeus

Weeks at number 1

5 (2 April-6 May)

Meanwhile…

2 April: The legendary horse Red Rum wins the Aintree Grand National for the third time. 

11 April: London Transport’s Silver Jubilee AEC Routemaster buses are launched. 

18–30 April: The Embassy World Snooker Championship moves to Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre, where it attracts TV coverage for the first time. 

23 April: National Front marchers clash with anti-Nazi protesters in London.
Also on this day, prostitute Patricia Atkinson is murdered in Bradford. Police believe she is the fourth woman to be killed by the Yorkshire Ripper.

29 April: British Aerospace is formed to run the nationalised aviation industry.

5 May: The Conservatives make gains at local council elections, including winning the Greater London Council from Labour.

394. ABBA – Dancing Queen (1976)

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The Intro

Simply magnificent. Right that’s Dancing Queen covered.

I’m joking, but really, what can be said about Dancing Queen that hasn’t already been said? How does one analyse the ecstasy contained within those three minutes and 52 seconds? In a moribund year of number 1s, this stands out not only as the best, it’s one of the greatest pop songs of all time, up there with She Loves You.

Before

Dancing Queen had been the first song ABBA recorded in the sessions for the album Arrival, beginning on 4 August 1975. The demo was known as Boogaloo and as sessions progressed, Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus became inspired by another disco classic – George McCrae’s Rock Your Baby and the drum sound from Dr John’s 1972 LP Dr John’s Gumbo. It’s slightly blown my mind to discover that the intro sounds very similar to Delaney & Bonnie’s Sing My Way Home from 1971. It was manager and co-writer Stig Anderson that gave the song its title.

Once the backing track was complete, with session musicians Rutger Gunnarsson on bass and Roger Palm on drums, Andersson took a tape home and played it to Anni-Frid Lyngstad. She was so moved she burst into tears and later recalled ‘I found the song so beautiful. It’s one of those songs that goes straight to your heart.’. Fellow ABBA vocalist Agnetha Fältskog agreed, reminiscing that ‘It’s often difficult to know what will be a hit. The exception was Dancing Queen. We all knew it was going to be massive.’

Andersson, Anderson and Ulvaeus worked on the missing piece of the puzzle, coming up with lyrics that capture how it feels to be young, on a night out, and feeling the music and eyes of adorers upon you.

Review

Dancing Queen is a masterclass in pop on every level. Just like the Beatles with She Loves You, they know they have a killer chorus on their hands and go straight into it after a triumphant piano roll. It’s euphoric and ecstatic, and before turning the spotlight (or should that be Super Troupers?) on the 17-year-old girl in the disco, it’s pointing at the listener. You can dance. You can jive. Having the time of your life. The combination of this message and the beautiful music is so inviting, I don’t see how can anyone can turn it down. And then the verses. It’s Friday night, the lights are low and the Dancing Queen is on the prowl.

The only real complaint I’ve heard about Dancing Queen is that the lyrics are politically incorrect, that the girl is a prick tease. I don’t agree. I think the lyrics are empowering, particularly considering the era they were written in. To read ‘Anybody can be that guy’ as a sign of her not being fussy who she pulls, needs to pay attention to the preceding line: ‘You come to look for a king’. Although this is obviously considered a disco anthem, the lyrics note she’s dancing to rock music. Andersson and Ulvaeus wisely ditched a verse that was here originally and has survived via footage from a recording session:

‘Baby, baby, you’re out of sight
Hey, you’re looking all right tonight
When you come to the party
Listen to the guys
They’ve got the look in their eyes’

You could still argue with me, and it’s a strong argument, that the final verse really does prove this girl is bad news:

‘You’re a teaser, you turn ’em on
Leave them burning and then you’re gone
Looking out for another, anyone will do’

ABBA somehow manage to make all this sound kind of innocent though, and I’d still say it’s refreshing to see the girl in charge. And it’s true. It’s the girls that hold all the power in the nightclub discos. And if you listen to this wonderful music, you can feel that way again. It’s a song that doesn’t age thanks to the heavenly production. Lyngstad and Fältskog sing like angels and Andersson’s piano is the highlight – I love the way his pieces seem to tumble from ear to ear with earphones on. Nice synth too, adding texture here and there. As the song fades away, you can almost cry at the sheer beauty of it all. Ah to be young again. There’s none of the Europop cheese ABBA often indulge in here. If there is a higher power up there, I think ABBA somehow channeled it with this song. It’s perfect.

Recorded in two days flat, ABBA knew they were on to a winner, but Anderson suggested Fernando should be released before it as it was broader. This seems like madness to me, but both were massive hits so there you go. Dancing Queen went global. A very respectful six weeks here, 14 weeks in their native Sweden and topping the charts in more than 10 countries, including their only number 1 in the US. It became the second track on Arrival, which was a smash.

After

In 1980 they recorded a Spanish version for their Latin LP Gracias Por La Música, where it was renamed Reina Danzante. Over the years Dancing Queen has only grown in stature and is often referenced by critics who want to get over the simple beauty of pop at its best. It returned to the UK charts in 1992, reaching 16 off the back of Erasure’s number 1 Abba-esque EP. it’s perhaps here that the ABBA revival really began.

The Outro

So, with three number 1s, all huge sellers and this one ruling the roost, 1976 really was ABBA’s year. They weren’t one-hit wonders anymore. They were one of the UK’s favourite groups. In the video to Dancing Queen above, they are performing in a small, packed venue to bopping fans. The band look to be on top of the world. They were.

The Info

Written by

Benny Andersson, Stig Anderson & Björn Ulvaeus

Producers

Benny Andersson & Björn Ulvaeus

Weeks at number 1

6 (4 September-15 October)

Trivia

Births

6 September: Footballer Ian Ashbee/Actress Naomie Harris
8 September: Model Abi Titmuss
11 September: Swimmer Neil Willey
16 September: S Club 7 singer Tina Barrett
13 October: Field hockey player Jennie Bimson

Deaths

1 October: Royal Air Force officer George Stacey Hodson
14 October: Actress Edith Evans

Meanwhile…

4 September: 25,000 people attend the Peace March in Derry and call for an end to violence in Northern Ireland.

9 September: The Royal Shakespeare Company opens a production of Macbeth at The Other Place, Stratford-upon-Avon. Directed by Trevor Nunn, it stars Ian McKellen and Judi Dench in the lead roles.

12 September: Portsmouth football club are reported to be on the brink of bankruptcy due to huge debts.

23 September: Eight men are killed when a fire breaks out on the destroyer HMS Glasgow while being fitted out at Swan Hunter at Wallsend on Tyne.

29 September: Ford launch the Cortina Mark IV.

4 October: The famous InterCity 125 high-speed train is introduced into passenger service on British Rail, initially between London Paddington, Bristol and South Wales.

15 October: Two members of the Ulster Defence Regiment are ailed for 35 years for murder of the members of the Republic of Ireland cabaret performers Miami Showband.

383. ABBA – Mamma Mia (1976)

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The Intro

In 1974, ABBA looked ready to go huge. They’d won Eurovision with Waterloo, and then… not a lot happened. It seemed likely that Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad were to become one-hit wonders. But 1976 proved the doubters wrong.

Before

So what did happen in the two years inbetween Waterloo and Mamma Mia? Well, ABBA’s UK record label didn’t help matters. They decided to follow up their Eurovision smash with a remix of Ring Ring, whereas elsewhere, Honey, Honey did pretty well, including reaching two in Germany. Ring Ring didn’t even enter the top 30, whereas a cover of Honey, Honey by Sweet Dreams went to 10.

November 1974 saw them embark on their first European tour, but most venues didn’t sell out and some dates even had to be cancelled. Around that time they released So Long as a single but it didn’t chart. It was followed in mid-1975 by I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do. It didn’t. Although it reached the top five in many European countries, it scaled the lofty heights of 38 in the UK.

Fortunately, things picked up after that. Their eponymous third studio album was released in April and hit number 13, and their next single SOS went to six. And rightly so – it’s one of their best.

Mamma Mia was the final track to be recorded for ABBA but would be the LP’s opener. It had been written at Ulvaeus and Fältskog’s home, and never intended as a single. It was even offered to Brotherhood of Man, soon to become Eurovision winners themselves, but they turned it down. Which is rather ironic when you consider they would completely rip off Fernando with their number 1 Angelo in 1977. In addition to Agnetha, Anni-Frid, Björn and Benny, it featured session musicians Janne Schafer on guitar, Mike Watson on bass and Roger Palm on drums. That distinctive and memorable sound you hear tick-rocking in the opening was a marimba, which was incorporated at the last minute when Andersson found one in the studio and rightly thought it could work well.

Review

As I stated in my blog for Waterloo, I’m far from ABBA’s biggest fan, and was turned off by them in general for many years, but there are exceptions to my rule. Where does Mamma Mia rate in my opinion? Well, it’s chock full of hooks and an excellent introduction to the songwriting of Andersson and Ulvaeus, featuring bittersweet lyrics set to an upbeat sound. While it can work well to use sad lyrics in a happy song, and it’s something ABBA would excel at, I’m not sure it works so well here. The girls are singing about being ‘cheated by you since I don’t know when’ and have had it happen so many times, it’s over. They don’t sound particularly cut up about that. However, you can rightly point out that love isn’t that simple, and as we discover, ‘just one look’ is all it takes to forget all the bad times, and bring the good rushing back. Such is love. Does ‘Mamma Mia’ sufficiently encapsulate the power of that love? It’s no ‘A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop, A-lop-bam-boom!’, that’s for sure, and was perhaps a placeholder that they decided to keep, with deadlines approaching.

Ultimately for me, despite its good points, Mamma Mia makes me think of the ‘cheesy’ aspects of ABBA that used to turn me off. They still sound a little ‘Eurovision’ here, and while I’m quite partial to a bit of cheese, and the guitar sound is a nice throwback to the glam they would soon ditch, I’m not fussed about hearing this song ever again. But I know I will, such is its ubiquity.

After

Mamma Mia was released in Australia in August, and spent 10 weeks at number 1. Epic went full steam ahead on promotion this time around in the UK, and it paid off. They filmed a video that’s proved to be an enduring image of the group – the girls and Ulvaeus dressed flamboyantly in white against a white backdrop, with Andersson tickling the ivories. You can see it in the link above.

It’s appropriate that future legends Queen, after nine weeks at the top, could only be defeated by another band that would in time be one of the biggest in the world. Even more appropriate when you consider that Bohemian Rhapsody contained the lyric ‘Mamma mia’ in the opera section.

The Outro

And of course, there’s the fact both bands have had musicals and films named after their songs. ABBA got there first, with the theatre show Mamma Mia! hitting the stage in 1999, followed by the cinema adaptation in 2008 and Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again in 2018. I’ve seen enough clips of the film, starring Meryl Streep and Colin Firth, to know that I would be physically ill if I was ever made to sit through it in full.

The Info

Written by

Benny Andersson, Stig Anderson & Björn Ulvaeus

Producers

Benny Andersson & Björn Ulvaeus

Weeks at number 1

2 (31 January-13 February)

Births

2 February: Swimmer James Hickman
10 February: Actress Keeley Hawes

Deaths

11 February: Actor Charlie Naughton
12 February: Philosopher John Lewis

Meanwhile…

2 February: Queen Elizabeth II opened the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham. 

4–15 February: Great Britain and northern Ireland competed at the Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria. They only win one gold medal, on 11 February, when John Curry won the figure skating competition.

348. ABBA (Bjorn, Benny, Anna & Frida) – Waterloo (1974)

/ robbarker1979 / 4 Comments

The Intro

I’m not giving you earth-shattering news when I point out that ABBA are one of the best-selling groups of all time. But here’s a few statistics to set the ball rolling. With nine UK number 1s between 1974 and 1980, they’ve had more than any other mixed-sex group in history. Seven of those number 1s occurred in the 70s, which is the most any single act had in that decade. They were the first group from a non-English-speaking country to have consistent success in English-speaking charts like the UK, US, Canada and Australia. Estimates suggest that their total sales are over 150 million. They’re easily the most successful group to have ever entered the Eurovision Song Contest, and ABBA Gold is one of the best-selling compilations of all time.

ABBA became cool again in the 90s, with their songs turned into the musical Mamma Mia! in 1999, before it was adapted into a hit film in 2008, spawning a sequel a decade later. In 2020 it was reported that they just might be making a comeback, though that could just be wishful thinking for a world turned on its heels that needs the pop bliss conjured up by Björn, Benny, Agnetha and Anni-Frid once more.

And yet despite all this – and I’m in agreement that Dancing Queen is one of the best number 1s of all time – a lot of ABBA’s output does little for me. I think a lot of it is down to the sheer overload during my 20s of ABBA covers and media coverage shoving them down the nation’s throats. Some truly awful acts were recording their songs, and they may have become guilty by association in my mind. Perhaps I will now grow to appreciate them more, as I work my way through their biggest hits?

Before

Before I look at the song that first made them stars, some background knowledge, as the story usually begins with ‘Swedish pop group ABBA entered Eurovision and became famous’.

Songwriter Benny Andersson, from Stockholm, joined his first band, The Hep Stars, aged 18, as their keyboardist. They were known as Sweden’s answer to The Beatles and often performed covers of international hits. Soon, Andersson was composing original material for them, and scored his first Swedish hit with No Response in 1965.

While touring, occasionally The Hep Stars would cross paths with folk-skiffle group The Hootenanny Singers, who featured Björn Ulvaeus as their songwriter and guitarist. In June 1966 the duo wrote their first song together, Isn’t It Easy to Say, which was recorded by The Hep Stars. The manager of The Hootenanny Singers (and later founder of Polar Music), Stig Anderson, encouraged them to write together more often. Andersson and Ulvaeus became friends and would occasionally join each other on stage in their respective bands, both of which were fracturing by 1969. Their first real hit together, written with Anderson, was Ljuva sextital (Sweet Sixties), recorded by Brita Borg that year.

Also in 1969, Andersson submitted Hej, Clown into Melodifestivalen 1969, the competition to decide Sweden’s Eurovision entry that year. He narrowly lost out, but he did meet a singer there called Anni-Frid Lyngstad, and within the month they had become a couple.

Lyngstad had become a jazz singer in 1967, winning national talent competition New Faces and appearing on television with the song En ledig dag (A Day Off). She signed with EMI Sweden and in early 1968 while appearing on TV she briefly met a singer named Agnetha Fältskog, who was performing her self-penned first single, Jag var så kär (I Was So in Love). A few months later Fältskog met Ulvaeus for the first time. In May 1969 they met again on a TV special and fell in love.

In 1970 Andersson and Ulvaeus recorded an album together called Lycka (Happiness). Both Lyngstad and Fältskog featured on the LP, with the latter co-writing a song. The two couples performed together for the first time while on holiday in Cyprus in an impromptu performance for soldiers stationed there. That November they presented a cabaret show, Festfolket (Party People) in Gothenburg, performing material by all four, but it was panned, and further collaborations were shelved, but not for long, as Hej, gamle man from Lycka, credited to Bjorn & Benny but featuring all four, became their first hit in Sweden.

Ulvaeus and Fältskog married in July 1971, and began performing live with Andersson regularly soon after. The collaborations became more frequent, and in 1972 the Swedish hit People Need Love was credited to Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid. Anderson had also encouraged them to make another attempt at entering Eurovision that year. They missed out again, but Säg det med en sång” (Say It with a Song), performed by Lena Anderson (another Anderson!), also did well in Sweden, and may have even done well in the US had it been on a bigger label.

In 1973, they tried for Eurovision again with Ring Ring, a direct, catchy pop song with interesting production techniques designed to emulate Phil Spector’s ‘Wall of Sound’, and English-translated lyrics by Neil Sedaka and Phil Cody. This was a good little pop song, but Eurovision still wasn’t ready for them. Despite that, it became the title track of their first album, credited to Björn Benny & Agnetha Frida. Anderson recognised this name was a bit unwieldy though, and began referring to them as ABBA, using the first letter of each member’s first name. It was also the name of a fish-canning company based in Gothenburg, and the band asked Abba for their blessing. They said it was fine as long as they didn’t do anything to make them feel shame for the association. I’m sure they were happy with the way things turned out.

In late 1973 the group was invited to take part in Melodifestivalen 1974, and set to work finding a song. They considered Hasta Mañana, sang by Fältskog, but decided to work on something that gave Fältskog and Lyngstad an equal chance to shine. Waterloo, originally titled Honey Pie, was inspired by the nostalgic rock’n’roll sound of Wizzard’s 1973 number 1 See My Baby Jive, and the lyrics came from Anderson.

Waterloo was a brave move for Eurovision, as at the time, the standard template was to use dramatic ballads, sung in the mother tongue of the country being represented. From 1973, the language rule was lifted, and Anderson and ABBA knew if they could garner a Eurovision win with an English language song, they could make it big beyond the competition.

Recording commenced on 17 December 1973, featuring regular ABBA session musicians Janne Schaffer on guitar (he wrote the guitar and bass parts), Rutger Gunnarsson on bass and Ola Brunkert on drums. Swedish and English versions were recorded, with German and French versions recorded in March and April 1974 respectively. The French version was adapted by Claude-Michel Schönberg, who later went on to co-write Les Misérables.

Review

I’ve a new-found appreciation of the fact Waterloo was something new for Eurovision, and I loved See My Baby Jive, so I should love the retro jive of Waterloo. The lyric is a clever conceit too – it’s a bold move to start a pop song in the mid-70s with ‘My my/At Waterloo Napoleon did surrender’ and to compare a historical moment with surrendering your love to someone. And I have always liked the way Andersson attacks the piano here. I just can’t love Waterloo, for some reason. I’d never listen to it by choice. One for the ‘admirable, but doesn’t connect with me’ pile.

But Waterloo connected like no Eurovision song ever had before with the public, or probably since. Credited to ABBA (Björn, Benny, Agnetha & Frida) in Sweden and ABBA (Björn, Benny, Anna & Frida) in the UK, it was released on 4 March, and on 6 April, they made history at The Dome in Brighton, rocking out in their glam rock-influenced outfits and huge platforms. The beautiful Faltskog particularly stood out – you could easily argue she may be the most beautiful woman to ever grace the pop world, without wishing to sound sexist. After winning the competition, ABBA partied all night in – of all places – the Napoleon suite of the Grand Brighton Hotel. Waterloo climbed the charts and a month later, they were number 1 in the UK. They also topped the charts all over Europe, and went top 10 in the US, but surprisingly didn’t hit number 1 in Sweden.

After

For a while however, it appeared ABBA could end up a one-hit wonder in the UK. Their second album, also named Waterloo, didn’t light up the charts, and a European tour led to cancelled dates due to poor ticket sales. Would ABBA become a footnote in 70s pop?

The Outro

Of course not. Waterloo was voted the best Eurovision song of all time at Congratulations: 50 Years of the Eurovision Song Contest in 2005.

The Info

Written by

Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus & Stig Anderson

Producers

Benny Andersson & Björn Ulvaeus

Weeks at number 1

2 (4-17 May)

Trivia

Births

7 May: Singer Lynden David Hall

Deaths

9 May: Writer LTC Rolt

Meanwhile…

4 May: Liverpool win the FA Cup for the second time with a 3-0 victory over Newcastle in the final at Wembley, with two goals from Kevin Keegan and one from Steve Heighway.

6 May: The inauguration of full electric service on British Rail’s West Coast Main Line through to Glasgow.

17 May – The Loyalist paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force carries out the Dublin and Monaghan bombings in the Republic of Ireland. 34 people died in the bombings, which caused the single deadliest death toll in the Troubles