Song Analysis - One Man, One Woman

 Despite the fact that the band was still made up of two very happy couples at the time that this song was written and recorded in July, 1977, One Man, One Woman is a song about a boring marriage that has last its spark, and things are not looking too good for the married couple.  However, unlike other ABBA songs that have to do with themes of breaking up, this song actually ends on a hopeful note!

The scene is set in the first verse as husband and wife sit at the breakfast table.  They don't say anything, don't smile, don't acknowledge each other's existence.  The wife, narrated by Frida in this song, has things she wants to say, but she just can't.  So he leaves, and she's left feeling so helpless.

The chorus followed by that initial kinda down and sad verse kinda gives off sarcastic vibes, like Frida's
character is singing about what marriage should be when her marriage is basically the opposite of that. "One man, one woman, two friends and two true lovers.  Somehow we’ll help each other through the hard times.  One man, one woman, one life to live together.  One chance to take that never comes back again.  You and me ’til the end."

The second verse has the woman in the song pondering what on earth happened to their relationship.  How has it become the relationship that it is?  Where did all that love go?  It makes her feel extremely saddened that what's supposed to be her happiest is draining her and leaving her feeling down and depressed all the time.  

Then, in the third voice, after spending the day daydreaming of how things could be better, as the man is coming home from work, the woman realizes that she doesn't just have to daydream about what could be.  Change can happen now.  Especially as when her husband smiles at her as he comes home, that's when she realizes their love is worth saving and can change for the better.  They will get through this rough patch.  They will make it through,  

And suddenly that last chorus doesn't sound so sarcastic anymore.  It feels like an actual hopeful remark, something that the narrator truly believes.

I was reading in ABBA on Record by Carl Magnus Palm how in early recordings of the song, it didn't originally have that last verse about hopefulness, instead repeating the first verse, making the whole marriage seem hopeless and lost, as the cycle just repeats again and again.  I really love the last verse, as it completely turns the song around, making it more of a message to anyone struggling in their marriage that no matter what, in a healthy relationship, love is worth fighting for!

Frida takes the lead vocals on this song, but Angetha joins her towards the end of each verse, adding beautiful harmonies to Frida's solo vocals, and then the choruses have that magical ABBA energy with the layers upon layers of backing vocals.  My absolute favorite element of the song is during the second verse, when there are some Beach Boys-style "oooooohs" throughout.  Benny and presumably Bjorn can be heard quite prominently, as well as some higher harmonies from Agnetha.  

At the end of the song after last chorus, there's this lovely instrumental outro that really captures that hopeful energy, taking the guitar intro from the beginning of the song and adding an optimistic element to it.  There are also some lovely piano bits by Benny sprinkled throughout the outro that I just love.   

I love songs that make you feel good and are optimistic, especially as I am a mostly optimistic person, so even though this song starts out a little bit negative, the reassuring last verse makes the song perfect to me.  I just love it.  

As far as I know, this song was only performed live once, during the first night of ABBA's 1979 tour, on September 13th in Edmonton, Canada.  The song was performed in between Roch Me and Not Bad At All, but they dropped the song from the setlist after that one performance, never to perform it live again.  Which is so disappointing because I bet this song sounded epic live!  Frida's vocal performance is so strong in this song, I know she sounded amazing live as well.  If only someone had a bootleg performance of this song.  Big sad!

Although as of this time we have no footage from that single performance of One Man, One Woman, there is a music video for it, and it is an extremely fun one in my opinion.  It's very classic ABBA, but Lasse Hallstrom has a bit of fun overlying the ABBA members faces over one another during the chorus, and it's quit an interesting effect for sure!  Though interestingly, in this video, they're not wearing any fancy costumes, mostly just wearing their own casual clothes, which I love.  Bjorn is even wearing that jacket that he's first seen wearing in the Tiger music video from ABBA-Dabba-Doo.  My favorite part in the music video is when the last verse is performed, Frida goes from a very serious look to smiling, spreading the optimism of the lyrics to her performance.