Song Analysis - People Need Love

 As I mentioned in my last post of the year, I kinda want to sort of start posting daily-ish about my thoughts on every single ABBA song.  I listen to ABBA's songs so much on the daily, and I often yap to my own family about random thoughts or feelings I have for said ABBA songs.  Seeing as I've sort of let my blog fizzle out to oblivion, I decided maybe I could translate some of my daily ramblings into my blog posts.  So here we are:

Why not start my first post of the new year on the first official ABBA song, released in June, 1972 about 52 years ago!  

The ABBA members had been together as a group called Festfolk, performing cabaret shows with a mixture of skits and songs back in 1970.  They'd perform covers as well as new versions of Bjorn and Benny's songs, like Hej Gamle Man (the first song to feature all four future ABBA members on a song together.)  Their shows were not very successful, and they were pretty dejected.   Despite this, they continued on, performing the occasional Festfolk show throughout the end of 1970, and then in 1971 Bjorn, Benny, and Agnetha even toured together while Frida toured separately. 

It wasn't until 1972 that they had the idea to write a song in English, rather than Swedish, and People Need Love was born. Recorded in March of that year, the song is very unlike any of the big ABBA hits that the average person first thinks of when you mention ABBA.  Their sound was still developing, yet you can still hear the first inkling of that classic ABBA sound - Agnetha and Frida singing in unison, and adding some beautiful harmonies to Bjorn and Benny's vocals, particularly in the last chorus of the song.

I've always loved the early ABBA songs that don't have a ton of harmonies stacked on top of each other.  (That's not saying that I dislike the layers of harmonies from the later ABBA songs - I LOVE THEM!) The vocals are very raw and clear, and I love how Bjorn and Benny sing one line and then Agnetha and Frida sing the next. It's very couple-y and cute in a way.

The lyrics of course are very sweet and hopeful, and very true.  The world really does need love in all sense of the word to carry on, and without it, the world can get pretty crumby as it kind of is today.  Now perhaps the lyrics are a bit dated as well, like it kind of displays the man or men in the song to be strong and will do everything for their woman and the woman's kinda just there to offer sympathy, but also I know that the true intent behind the song is not to be chauvinist.

There are a total of three known TV performances of the song.  The first one is from early 1972 and is the only performance that we know of to feature Agnetha in the video.  The other two have Frida's friend Inger Brundin filling in for Agnetha because Agnetha was either heavily pregnant at the time or had just given birth.  

All in all, I truly love this song as it's the first ABBA song that lead to a long and beautiful career and legacy!