Song Analysis - On And On And On

 ABBA's forthcoming Super Trouper album would be mostly filled with songs that discussed serious and mature topics, such as an existential crises in Me And I, the end of a marriage in the Winner Takes It All, being under the control of a dictator as seen in The Piper, etc, but then you have a couple purely fun songs to break it up.  One of those purely fun songs is On And On And On.  Originally titled, Esses vad det svänger när man spelar jazz, and then 'Til The Night Is Gone, On and On and On is a song about not taking life seriously.

The song begins by introducing us to the setting.  We're in the midst of the party, a pretty big one obviously considering there's a state minister of sorts at the part as well.  Plus while we don't know much about the narrator, she's obviously a star as mentioned in the second verse. The minister starts complaining about the state of the world, how people don't respect human rights anymore, and our narrator, is like, "Who are you to say all these things?"  He lowers his voice and is like "Wel, you see I'm a minster, a big shot in the state," and our narrator finds it amusing and is like "Omg that's so cool!  So brother, can you tell me what is right and what is wrong?" and he simply replies, "Keep on rocking baby, 'til the night is gone."  

His response kinda makes me thing everyone here at the party is a little bit tipsy, haha, because just one moment ago he's like "omg the world is such a scary place!! Evil times are coming!! :O :O :O" but then he's just like "Yeah, just keep on rocking, 'til the night is gone."  Essentially saying, there's nothing we can do about it, so just keep on living.

The chorus is super simple, literally just the same like "On and on and on, keep on rocking baby, 'Til the night is gone.  One and on and on, 'til the night is gone," repeated twice.

In the second verse, there's a guy at the bar at this party who starts eyeing up the narrator, so she decides to just go on over, see what he wants.  And he asks her this super amazing question, "who am I, and who are you, and who are we??" an he asks her if she has "time for us," and she's like "well, I'm not exactly waiting for the bus."  He asks if he can go along with her wherever she's going, and she's like "Keep on rocking baby 'til the night is gone."  I personally have always interpreted that as her not exactly giving him the response he wants, essentially telling him to buzz off, but I realize it could also mean that she's like "Well, we gotta keep on rocking 'till the night as gone," as in keep on living life to the fullest until you can't anymore, but as well literally keep on rocking 'till the night is gone, like the type of rocking that the song Rock Me is about....  

Anyways, originally the song had an added bridge which was, "Standing up is scary if you think you're gonna fall. Like a humpty-dumpty, 'fraid of falling off the wall.  I say if you ever wanna know what's going on, gotta keep on rockin', baby, 'til the night is gone," and this full version of the song was included in the official music video that is basically just a slideshow of images from ABBA's 1979 tour, and originally the only ABBA music video to not feature ABBA in it at all.  (The second one is the music video for Little Things.)  However the officially released version that was included on the album removed the bridge and replaced it with an instrumental bridge.  

Both Agnetha and Frida sing the lead vocals together on this song in a very monotonous way, kind of reminisce of how monotonous and boring life can be, and they capture that pretty well in the song.  There's not much in terms of stacks of harmonies in this track, but this song does feature some really lovely Beach Boys-style backing vocals performed mostly by Benny throughout the chorus.  And as simple as they are, they really add so much to the song and completes it.  

Musically, the song is very simple as well with a very 80s synth soundscape.  I think Bjorn once refereed to this song as one of ABBA's few rock'n'roll songs, but like, I don't personally hear that haha.  I like the song, it's very satirical almost, and while I wouldn't quite say it's an ABBA dance track, it's definitely very upbeat and fun and for once doesn't feature too depressing lyrics.

ABBA only performed this song twice, once on the show Show Express (we also have rehearsal footage from that performance) and once live on the Dick Cavett Meets ABBA TV special.  Their performance on Show Express is honestly one of my favorite ABBA performances ever, specifically because although this performance was post-Agnetha and Bjorn's split, you can see them having fun and teasing each other during the song's bridge.  And of course we have Frida and Benny's iconic literal head bang haha.