Song Analysis - Merry-Go-Round

 

Recorded in March 1972, Merry-Go-Round is the B-side to Bjorn, Benny, Agnetha, & Anni-frid's first English-language single as a group.  The song is a very simple tune about the main character in the song's struggle to find love, reflecting on feelings of loneliness without said love.

As with a lot of ABBA's earlier tunes from the Ring Ring era, the song features Bjorn on lead vocals with lovely backing vocals from the other three members.  I've always loved the backing vocals on this song, as they get more and more intense with each chorus.  And then there is the absolutely incredible outro to the song with lots of "Merry-go-round-merry-merrry-go-round-merry-go-round"s in the background and some lovely harmonies from Agnetha and Frida repeating "merry-merry-merry-merry-merry-go-round".  

The music itself is very happy and cheerful, not reflective of the themes of loneliness in the lyrics at all.  This theme of happy music with sad lyrics is something that continues to show up throughout ABBA's longstanding career, and something that I find to be really interesting how this ABBA-style of writing music shows up in even their earliest recordings.

Merry-Go-Round was also recorded in Swedish and released as a single that same year by Bjorn and Benny as part of their short-lived solo career together.  Unlike the English version, Benny is also featured on lead vocals, singing the second chorus.  The Swedish lyrics are pretty much the same theme as the English versions, though it's not much about finding love but rather questioning the purpose of life and how hard and complicated it is.  "En karusell, var är vårt liv? Annat än entt enda stort tivoli?" roughly translates to "A merry-go-round, where is our life? Other than one big fairground?"  (Thanks Google Translate hahaha)

I find it quite funny how En Karusell uses the same backing track as the English version, and as a result, you can hear the English backing vocals buried in with the Swedish ones.  Also, interestingly enough, at least to my ears, Agnetha and Frida don't seem to be as present in this version of the song, and instead we get Bjorn and Benny singing backing vocals in sort of a falsetto ("snurrar,snurrar, en karusell" seems to be what they're singing).  And then you get a very shortened version of the epic outro from Merry-Go-Round at the end of the song.

 For me the real highlight to this song is that outro, but all in all it is a very good song, and quite a contrast to the happy, cheerfulness presented in the A-side, People Need Love.