388. ABBA – Fernando (1976)

The Intro

It may have seemed a little bold for ABBA to release a Greatest Hits in March 1976. However, their label Polar decided to due to the many cash-in compilations labels scattered around the globe were releasing in an attempt to cash-in on the fact that they were becoming huge. And with two UK number 1 singles to their name and plenty of hits elsewhere featured, it proved a wise move. It became their first number 1 album on these shores.

Before

As well as a mix of their early hits and lesser-known tracks in the UK, there was a new song, released as a single. Although it wasn’t strictly speaking, ‘new’. Fernando had first featured on band member Anni-Frid Lyngstad’s debut solo LP Frida ensam in 1975. Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus had originally called it Tango but at the last minute they renamed it Fernando after a bartender working at a club in Stockholm, Sweden, allegedly.

This Swedish version had lyrics penned by ABBA’s manager Stig Anderson and Lyngstad is singing to a heartbroken Fernando, attempting to console him after he has lost the love of his life. The chorus translated as:

‘Long live love, our best friend, Fernando.
Raise your glass and propose a toast to it; to love, Fernando.
Play the melody and sing a song of happiness.
Long live love, Fernando’

When it came to ABBA recording the song, Ulvaeus decided to take a different tack. He was lying outside one summer night and gazing at the stars when he hit upon a brainwave. Fernando became about two old freedom fighters who fought in the Texas Revolution of 1836, who reminisced about days of old one night in Mexico.

Review

Fernando is one of ABBA’s best-known and biggest-selling singles, but it’s my least favourite of their number 1s. I find it leaden and overwrought and I’m not really interested in hearing about what two 19th-century soldiers have to say. Give me their relationship drama and we’ve something to work with. It also suffers coming straight after Save Your Kisses For Me, which meant 10 weeks of tedium at number 1 on repeats of Top of the Pops and again, it makes me relieved I wasn’t a pop fan in 1976. Having said all this, I’d be a liar if I didn’t say the chorus was very memorable.

ABBA starred in a memorable, suitably dramatic video for Fernando, sat around a campfire looking very serious and gazing into each other’s eyes, as you can see above. ABBA made lots of videos – I’m not sure if they ever actually promoted on Top of the Pops in person? As well as a month as UK number 1, Fernando topped the charts across the globe. It became the longest-running number 1 in Australian history (14 weeks) for more than 40 years until Ed Sheeran’s Shape of You went one better in 2017.

After

ABBA made a Spanish-language album, Gracias Por La Música, in 1980 and Fernando was a natural choice for an LP aimed at Latin American countries.

The Outro

So, ABBA had scored two number 1s before we even reach the half-way mark of 1976, and the best was yet to come.

The Info

Written by

Benny Andersson, Stig Anderson & Björn Ulvaeus

Producers

Benny Andersson & Björn Ulvaeus

Weeks at number 1

4 (8 May-4 June)

Trivia

Births

8 May: Steps singer Ian ‘H’ Watkins
14 May: Actress Martine McCutcheon

Deaths

14 May: Yardbirds singer Keith Relf

Meanwhile…

9 May: 20-year-old prostitute Marcella Claxton is badly injured in a hammer attack in Leeds.

10 May: Following months of rumours of his involvement in a plot to murder his ex-lover Norman Scott, Jeremy Thorpe resigns as leader of the Liberal Party.

19 May: Liverpool win the UEFA Cup for the second time by completing a 4-3 aggregate win over Belgian side Club Brugge KV at the Olympiastadion in Brugge.

27 May: Harold Wilson’s Resignation Honours List is published. It becomes known satirically as the ‘Lavender List’ due to the number of wealthy businessmen awarded honours.

1 June: UK and Iceland end the third and final Cod War. The UK abandoned the ‘open seas’ international fisheries policy it had previously promoted.

312. The Pipes and Drums and the Military Band of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards (Carabiniers & Greys) Bandmaster W.O.I.CI. Herbert. Pipe Major W.O.II. J. Pryde – Amazing Grace (1972)

The Intro

There are many baffling number 1s scattered through the years of the singles chart. This must be one of the biggest mysteries. Not only did The Pipes and Drums and the Military Band of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards topple Without You from number 1 with their instrumental cover of the Christian hymn Amazing Grace – it became the biggest seller of 1972.

Before

One of the oldest known songs to reach the top spot, Amazing Grace dates back to 1772, when the words were first written by English poet and clergyman John Newton. He grew up a wayward soul, narrowly avoiding death several times and each time hoping to repent and become closer to God, before reverting to his old ways. He was pressed into the Royal Navy, but would take advantage of chances to overstay his leave, and he deserted to visit a lover. Because of this, he was traded as crew to a slave ship, and began a career in slave trading. How very unholy. Newton had a taste of his own medicine however. After falling out with crew members and writing obscene poems about the ship’s captain, he would be chained up like the slaves on the ship.

In 1748, the ship Greyhound was hit by a terrible storm and nearly capsized. Newton, who had been reading religious texts beforehand, exclaimed ‘Lord have mercy upon us!’. When the Greyhound was finally safe, Newton pondered if, indeed, God had saved them. Not that this was enough to convert him instantly – Newton married his lover, but remained in the slave trade for a while.

In 1756 the Newtons were living in Liverpool, and he became obsessed with religion. Eight years later Newton was offered the curacy of the small village of Olney in Buckinghamshire. He befriended a gifted writer, William Cowper, and became interested in writing hymns. The duo decided to present a new poem or hymn at each weekly prayer meeting. Newton wrote the lyrics in late 1772 and they were likely first read on New Year’s Day 1773. A collection of their work, Olney Hymns, was bound and published anonymously in 1779. ‘1 Chronicles 17:16–17, Faith’s Review and Expectation’ was the name of the hymn that began with ‘Amazing grace! (how sweet the sound)’.

Olney Hymns became very popular in Britain with evangelicals, although Amazing Grace wasn’t among the ones widely used. It was in the early-19th-century religious revival of communal singing in the US that it caught on. Nobody knows what, if any, music the hymn was set to initially, but the first known instance had it set to the tune Hephzibah by English composer John Husband in 1808. There were 20 differing versions until 1835 when American composer William Walker assigned Newton’s words to the song New Britain. His tunebook Southern Harmony, published in 1847, was a huge seller, and this became the definitive Amazing Grace, of which there are over a thousand recorded versions, including this one.

The first known recorded version was an a cappella performance by the Sacred Harp Choir in 1922. It was US gospel singer Mahalia Jackson’s 1947 recording that revived Amazing Grace in the 20th century and turned it into, ironically, a song used by African Americans to express their joy at being delivered from slavery. From there it became ever more popular for political reasons during the civil rights movement and opposition to the Vietnam War.

Folk singer Judy Collins (strangely credited for the song on the original vinyl by the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards) witnessed the song’s power on a civil rights march in 1964 and began performing it regularly. She recorded it a cappella for her 1970 album Whales & Nightingales and claimed it helped her through her alcohol dependency. It became a big hit, reaching number five in the UK.

And somehow this song that was used as a means of protest against war made its way to the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards. This cavalry regiment of the British Army was formed on 2 July at Holyrood, Edinburgh. Some time after, the pipes and drums recorded an LP, arranged by Stuart Fairbarn, based on Collins’ version. According to a 1972 article by The New York Times, late-night DJs picked this track from the album The Amazing Sound of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards and it grew in popularity, which must surely have come as a surprise even at the time.

Review

Clearly, there must have been a love for bagpipes in the UK in the 70s, as this number 1 can’t help but bring to mind the fact that Mull of Kintyre, five years later, became one of the biggest-sellers of all time. Why was this? I can find no point of reference upon investigation. This wasn’t the theme for a TV show or film, for example. I wonder if, in the light of The Troubles, the English felt closer to the Scottish? Was the news of all the violence in Northern Ireland making people turn to Scottish culture? Quite possibly – but if so, how do you explain the fact it also went to number 1 in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa?

Personally speaking, I’m ok with bagpipes, which can be somewhat divisive. I like the droning quality they bring to music. My favourite use is when they appear unexpectedly on Parliament’s beautiful cover of Ruth Copeland’s The Silent Boatman. And who doesn’t love Amazing Grace? Difficult song to get wrong, and it’s tastefully done, with Pipe Major Tony Crease’s solo mirroring Collins’ voice. But after two listens, I’m no clearer to understanding just how this became the year’s biggest single.

After

Despite its huge success in 1972, the Pipe Major at the time was summoned to Edinburgh Castle for a telling off for demeaning the bagpipes. As the money rolled in, there must have been a softening of the rules as, The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards have released many albums since, including a remake of this song.

The Outro

The irony of reading how a song by a slave trader became so important to black people as the Black Lives Matter movement rages on around me hasn’t escaped me. I wonder if this song will soon be #cancelled along with the statues of racists, or whether it will escape the understandable anger due to its ubiquitous use in the black community.

The Info

Written by

Traditional

Producer

Pete Kerr

Weeks at number 1

5 (15 April-19 May) *BEST-SELLING SINGLE OF THE YEAR*

Trivia

Births

16 April: Motorcycle racer John McGuinness
17 April: Racewalker Vicky Lupton
22 April:
Actress Sarah Patterson
2 May: Footballer Paul Adcock
3 May: Broadcast journalist Katya Adler
5 May: Olympic rower James Cracknell

Deaths

11 May: Poet EV Rieu

Meanwhile…

19 April: Lord Chief Justice Lord Widgery exonerated the British troops who opened fire on Bloody Sunday of blame, saying the demonstration had been illegal.

30 April: The Brighton Belle Pullman car train made its final journey from London to Brighton.

3 May: In the first ever UEFA Cup final, Tottenham Hotspur beat Wolverhampton Wanderers 2-1 in the first leg at the Molineux in Wolverhampton.

6 May: Leeds United won the FA Cup for first time, defeating 1971 winners Arsenal 1-0 at Wembley Stadium.

8 May: Derby County won the Football League’s First Division title for the first time.

12 May: The Crown Court, established by the Courts Act 1971, replaced the Assize and Quarter Sessions in England and Wales. Also this day, property qualifications requiring jurors to be householders were abolished.  

17 May: Spurs completed a 3-2 aggregate win over Wolverhampton Wanderers at White Hart Lane to win the first UEFA Cup.

18 May: Queen Elizabeth II met her ill uncle, Edward, Duke of Windsor for the last time, at his Paris home.