Song Analysis - The Name Of The Game

 The Name Of The Game is the first song that ABBA began recording when they got back from their 1977 tour.  With recording commencing in May, 1977, the song is basically just another song about falling in love.  I heard it said that because ABBA had been planning on including a scene in ABBA the Movie where Agnetha is seated in a psychiatrists chair during the Name Of The Game dream sequence, they decided to make this song about a woman falling in love with her therapist and had the line "Now I am here, talking to you...", but honestly, I don't think that's true.  Especially as the song had to be finished for them to lip sync to it in ABBA the Movie, and they can't retroactively add lyrics to the song and make it about something that hadn't happened yet, and I am digressing hahahaha.

Anyway, this song is among some of the last couple of songs that Stig Anderson contributed lyrics to, the last one being Move On.  Bjorn and Benny had always been the main song writers, with Stig helping out on a lot of their songs including some of their greatest hits, but after the three songs he helped with for their The Album album (I Wonder, Move On, and The Name Of The Game), Bjorn and Benny were the sole songwriters, and eventually most of the lyric ended up falling to just Bjorn.

This song is basically about a person who just met this guy (it honestly could be her therapist but really could be anyone hahaha), has only known him a week but has already met with him twice and is starting to fall in love with him.  She never had any luck with love before, as she says that she was an impossible case, no one ever could reach her, but this guy is essentially making her fall head over heals.  She's never experienced a feeling quite like this before, and she wants him to tell her all about it.  She asks that he teach her the name of this game.  She feels so comfortable around this guy, has never been able to open up this much to a person.  she feels like a child with no experience in this (not a literal child!  This song is not about a creep okay???), and she wants to know if he'll laugh at her if she tells him how she really feels about him.  

This song is honestly such a beautiful description of what it could feel like to fall in love without actually using the word "love" in the song at all.  Perhaps the woman in the song is falling in love a little too quickly, but perhaps this man is truly the one and they're just meant to be with each other.  Dare I say, this song kind of reminds me of "That's Me," a little bit, as in perhaps this is Carrie-not-the-kind-of-girl-you'd-marry finally finding someone who she truly matches with, someone who makes her feel so comfortable and in love, and she thinks she's finally found the one.  Just my personal thought, I wasn't there when Bjorn, Benny, and Stig wrote the song, but it kind of gives me a bit of an understanding of the situation that the main character of the song could be going through and what her backstory is.

I have always really loved this song in it's full 4:54 glory.  The first time I heard it was in ABBA Gold, and they had cut down the song to just 4:01, taking out the whole second verse, and so when I first heard the song as a whole, I instantly fell in love with it.  This song in particular has that incredible third voice from Agnetha and Frida, their voices blending together so perfectly in the verses.  Then there are these absolutely amazing solo passages from each lady, Agnetha singing the pre-chorus and then Frida singing the post-chorus.  This song really highlights their amazing vocals, and I love how when they're singing together with that third voice you can't distinguish their voices from each other, but then when they each sing their solo passages, you can really hear their individual voices so clearly.  And then in the chorus, you have some lovely harmonies from Bjorn and Benny mixed in (specifically in the last two choruses, with the lines backing vocals: "I Was an impossible case...  But I think I can see in you face that it means a lot.... Your smile and the sound of your voice....  Got a feeling you give me no choice, but it means a lot...) and this song is just pure ABBA magic in all of the qualities.

One of my absolute favorite parts of the song is the bridge, which is the part that goes:

"And you make me talk
and you make me feel
and you make me show
what I’m trying to conceal
if I trust in you would you let me down
would you laugh at me If I said I care for you
could you feel the same way too
I wanna know
the name of the game "

 I love the "du-du du-du"s in the background as Frida sings "And you make me talk, and you make me feel..." and then when Agnetha joins in on "If I trust in yo, would you let me down.  Would you laugh at me if I said I care for you?"  It just sounds so perfect and has that metallic sound that I talked about a bit in my post about Why Did It Have To Be Me and sounds so perfect.  I love it.

This song is also structured really uniquely.  According to Genius.com, it goes: Verse 1, Pre-Chrous 1, Chorus, Post-Chorus,  Bridge, Verse 2, Pre-Chorus 2, Chorus, Post-Chorus, Bridge, Chorus, Chorus.  This song is also quite long.  Not the longest ABBA studio track, which is tied between Eagle and The Day Before You Came, but definitely up there.  

ABBA performed this song a good number of times from 1977 to 1979, even performing it as part of the 1979 tour, though not in full as they ended up ending it before the second verse and it merges into the next track, Eagle.  We have two official releases of ABBA singing this song live at Wembley, one from the ABBA Live 1986 album and then on ABBA Live at Wembley Arena, released in 2014.  I love this song live, like the song sounds quite epic even if it's only the first 3 minutes of it.  My favorite part is honestly the outro of the song as it goes into Eagle, where they repeat "And it means a lot..." a ton, and in the audio from their last night at Wembley, Bjorn has some fun ad-libs which are, "Oh it does," "Oh yes it does", "Oh yeah" and two others than I can't really decipher, but honestly they are so cute and I really like them.

All in all, I really love this song.  It's even my alarm that I wake up to every morning and I've had it set to that for a good few years and I have yet to get tired of it haha. 

Anyways, here is a compilation of all of their TV performances/official videos of this song: