Song Analysis - Rock Me

 Rock Me is quite the rocking track.  I think it's quite clear what this song is about, lol, but not only that, it's also a testament to how much the character in the song loves his partner.  With lines such as "yours forever honey that’s what I wanna be..." and "your sweet lover honey that’s what I wanna be..." it's actually pretty sweet and nice.  

Bjorn takes the lead vocals on this song, and he sings really well.  He already used his rocky vocals once before in Watch Out, as I already mentioned, but I was just thinking about how it must have been for casual fans of the Hootenanny Singers must have felt hearing Bjorn since in this style.  The Hootnanny Singers, Bjorn's band before ABBA, sang pretty much entirely sweet and gentle folk songs, and the four guys in the band, Bjorn, Hansi Schrawtz, Tony Rooth, and Johan Karlberg have the sweetest and most beautiful harmonies, and their music could be enjoyed by all ages, and I'm just trying to picture what it was like for people who were interested in seeing what the members of the Hootenanny Singers were doing after the band had seemingly been put on hold when Bjorn's main focus was ABBA (the Hootenanny Singers did start releasing more music in 1979 onwards, but without Bjorn btw) and then hearing songs like Rock Me and Watch Out and hearing the contrast between his singing then and now.  (If you couldn't tell, I've been listening to a lot of Hootenanny Singers lately hahaha, and also Hep Stars, and they both have some really good songs.)

I will say, especially as Bjorn( and Benny, too) had previously done mostly soft, gentle songs (Another Town, Another Train, She's My Kind Of Girl, I Saw It In The Mirror, and their whole Lycka album), Bjorn sings really well on this song, and I think he fully committed to this song.  And clearly Rock Me ended up being a favorite as this song made it onto the setlist of all of their tours, from their 1975 tour all the way to their last concert tour in 1980.  

Of course I can't not talk about Agnetha and Frida's backing vocals as well.  They sing with Bjorn during the chorus, and honestly all three of their voices almost blend together that it's hard to pinpoint Agnetha and Frida's voices.  And then before each verse?, Agnetha and Frida sing "Don't stop the rockin' I said don't stop the rockin' don't stop the rockin'" or something along those lines, though interestingly, during the 1975 bootleg recording we have, they don't sing that and instead are replaced with a saxophone haha. 

ABBA's performances of Rock Me on the various TV shows are always fun and full of energy, but I think my favorite filmed performance is actually the one from ABBA the Movie in Australia, 1977.  There's so much energy during that performance, it's really amazing to see.  

Considering ABBA performed this song a lot, at least during their tours, I'm surprise Rock Me hasn't made it onto a lot of compilation albums.  Especially with the assumption that ABBA songs are only with Agnetha and/or Frida singing, it would be nice to show that they do have popular songs with Bjorn on lead vocals.  It's not just Does Your Mother Know that he sings.  He sings plenty.  I'm going to link you to a cringy but funny post I did 11 years ago about a fictional compilation album I made featuring only the songs that have Bjorn and/or Benny singing because they deserve a compilation album of their ABBA songs.  Would it sell?  Probably not ahahhaaha, but ~20 songs is not a small number.  

Anyways, I like this song a lot.  It's good, it's fun, and I'm fairly certain they performed this song on more TV shows than in this compilation of all their Rock Me performances, just a lot of the TV footage is lost so we will probably never get to see it.  Regardless, their TV performances for this song are still a ton of fun.