Song Analysis - Just A Notion

I have been so so excited to write about this post, hahahahaha.  

I know I mentioned in the last post how Bjorn and Benny were becoming a lot less vocally prominent in tracks from the Voulez-Vous album, and while that is certainly true, that's not to say they weren't there recording any vocals.  I think it's probably that when they were mixing the songs, they just slowly and slowly faded Bjorn and Benny's vocals to be so much lower and quieter in the mix that you can't hear them.  However that is no the case with Just A Notion!  ABBA began recording this song in August, 1978, and surprisingly it features very prominent harmonies and backing vocals from Bjorn in the verses, namely the "Ahaha"s that are throughout the whole song.  The song featured Agnetha and Frida together in the chorus, singing together in perfect harmony with that wonderful, blended, almost metallic-sounding, and the backing track is just happy and exciting.

Just A Notion is one of ABBA's just pure, happy songs.  It's not happy music with sad lyrics, it's just a song about someone who has this feeling, this small little notion, that maybe this person who they like, likes them back.  It almost sounds like what happens when you get a major crush on a person, and suddenly they're all your thinking about, and suddenly you're coming up with all these fantasies about what's going to happen, what your wedding will be like, what your future life will be like, how many kids you'll have, etc, even though it's all just a crush and said person that you're crushing on hasn't even said or done anything to indicate that they're interested in you, haha.  But it's all innocent and fun, and of course you can't just walk up to the crush and be like "omg I like you," you have to wait for them to  take initiative.  But of course you can't help but wonder and come up with reasons for why that hasn't happened yet.  

Agnetha and Frida sing, "Just a notion, that's all.  Just a funny feeling deep inside that you're out there waiting.  You're not sure I'm alone, and you wonder if I'm occupied," basically assuming that the reason why that the person hasn't come up to them is because maybe they think the main character of the song is occupied or with someone else.  Then in chorus, there's that fantasizing about what's going to happen and what it'll be like when they actually get together, "Just a notion, that you'll be walking up to me in a while.  And you'll smile and say hello.  And we'll be dancing through the night, knowing everything from there on must be right!"  And in the second verse, there's the line, "Just a feeling that you're watching me, every move I'm making.  Am I reading your mind?  'Cause it's almost like you're touching me."  

It's like the narrator of the song is projecting their own feelings and the person they're crushing on, and just making silly little assumptions, and honestly, it's just fun and innocent, and happy.  And that's just one of the many reasons why I like this song. 

However, Bjorn and Benny were never really satisfied with the it, and as much as they liked the song, Bjorn and Benny just weren't happy with the mix, and ultimately left the song as unreleased.  And so it remained, until 1994, when Michael B. Tretow was assembling the ABBA Undeleted medley, he included a ~2:20 second snippet of the song, starting from the second chorus until the end of the song, appearing 4:55 in the ABBA Undeleted medley.  That was the first time fans ever heard the song, and when I first got into ABBA and was listening to literally every single song I could find on YouTube, I fell in love with Just A Notion.  I loved the music, the sound, the vocals, everything, and I couldn't believe Bjorn and Benny deemed the song unworthy of being finished because to me, it was everything.  I love all the songs on ABBA Undeleted, but this one, along with Giving A Little More, stood out to me as just fantastic and amazing songs, and I would listen to them over and over again.

Clearly I'm not the only ABBA fan who loved this song so much.  In 1999, before I was even born hahah, the ABBA tribute-band, Arrival, were given permission to record the song in full or their debut album, First Flight.  Their version is basically a recreation of the original 1978 version, and it's decent.  I can't listen to it, hahaha, but for what it is, it's not bad.  And they ended up being the first official release of the song in full.  It has a piano crescendo intro in the style of Dancing Queen in the beginning, and a saxophone instrumental break in where the second chorus would be, and it also repeats the first verse at the end of the song, and it's basically a fun little tribute to ABBA.  But I'm only listening to it for the sake of the review and analysis as I cannot bear to listen to anyone other than ABBA singing ABBA songs more than once.  Not trying to put down the singers of the tribute band, I just can't listen to it.  

Anyways, fast forward to 2021, and Bjorn and Benny had the idea to revive Just A Notion, and find a way to release it.  Ultimately, the only way to make it workable for them was to rerecord the entire backing track, and that's what they did.  I believe they kept Lasse Wellander's original guitar from the 1978 mix, and that aside from the vocals are the only things from the original 1978 recording.  Everything else was recorded anew, and it's amazing.  When I first heard this new version of the song, I was at first a little disappointed because I preferred the 1978 instruments more, and this 2021 version has more of a ragtime feel and less exciting, however I don't feel that way anymore.  I really enjoy it, I love all of Benny's piano bits throughout the entire song, I love the extended outro, and I love the extra vocals that Agnetha and Frida recorded in 2021 as well.  (More on that in a bit.)

The one thing that does bother me though is the fact that they mixed Agnetha and Frida's vocals differently.  Before, they were singing at like the same volume, with Agnetha and Frida's voices sounded perfectly level and you get that wonderful blended sound that I described earlier.  However, for the 2021 mix, they made Agnetha's vocals more prominent, and Frida's vocals lower in volume, and the result is it sounds more like it's Agnetha's lead with Frida just harmoinzing rather than the two of them singing together.  They still sound beautiful together, and what a treat it is to hear this song in full finally after all these years of being locked away as an unmixed, unfinished track, but it would have sounded so amazing if they kept the blending of their voices.

Now while the entirety of the song's vocals are from the 1978 version, Agnetha and Frida did record a line for the extended outro.  That line being, "I, I think it's more than a notion.  Even more than your dream is about to come true!" and I love how you can tell that Agnetha and Frida are older, their voices aren't as crisp and light as they used to sound, yet they still sound really, really good singing in that higher pitch to try and sound like their younger selves, with all these layers and layers of harmonies, and I bet if someone who wasn't as familiar with ABBA's voices were to hear this song, they wouldn't even be able to detect that these are modern vocals.

So all in all, I love this song with my entire heart and soul, and I am so so so glad that ABBA chose to release it finally on 2021's Voyage album.  It was just such a treat, hearing it for the first time, and although the instruments sound a lot more modern compared to other songs recorded in 1978, I sometimes like to make a little playlist of my favorite Voulez-Vous era songs, like Dream World, Lovelight, Kisses Of Fire, Angeleyes, and Just A Notion, and it fits right in. 

Song Analysis - The King Has Lost His Crown

 Frida is an insanely incredible and talented vocalist, but if there's something she is really, really good at, it's her sarcastic and snarky vocals as can be heard in The King Has Lost His Crown.  Recorded in August, 1978, the song is about a guy who has just lost his girlfriend, and suddenly, his entire life has been thrown upside down.  

 In a way, the lyrics seem to convey sympathy for this guy, the "king" even though he's not an actual king, but the way things are phrased and how Frida sings it, you can tell she's sort of making fun of him and belittle his situation a bit.  At least that's how I've always interpreted it.  Specifically the lines, "how does it feel? I guess it hurts your pride," and "Disaster and disgrace! The king has lost his crown!" kinda of give of mocking vibes, as if he's being so over dramatic over the breakup and Frida and Agnetha are laughing at him.  

The guy is basically acting like a king who has lost his crown, and now he doesn't act like himself, when all that happened is that he was broken up with.  Honestly based off the first line of the song, "I believe your new girl turned you down, and they say, she's pushing you around," makes me thing that this is the type of guy who feels like he can't anything without having a girl in his life.  He can't function without having a significant other but also "being the man" in situation and "being the one in control," and as a result, he doesn't seem to have a very good track record of keeping a girlfriend, so he gets new girl after new girl after new girl.  But then this time, his newest girl pushes back, she doesn't let him have the control, she's the one who puts her foot down an actively doesn't let him feel like he's in control, and that just totally ruins him.  Someone who doesn't put up with his garbage personality?? :O :O :O :O

And yeah, that's my interpretation of the song.  I wasn't there when Bjorn and Benny wrote the song, with the lyrics mostly written by Bjorn, so I can't know 100% what it was about, but also it probably wasn't based off any true facts either.  Remember, unless an ABBA song is explicitly mentioned to be inspired by real life, it isn't the true story. :)  

While Frida sings the lead throughout the song with her amazing sarcastic vocals, Agnetha joins her in the second half of the verses and choruses.  Much like a lot of the songs from the Voulez-Vous album, I don't hear much of Bjorn and Benny in the backing vocals, but I'm sure they're buried in their somewhere.  The backing track with Benny's powerful synths also give off that almost vengeful feel to the song.  And I just love it.  (I loved this song so much that when I was still making ABBA animations on Lego Digital Designer back in my early days of YouTube, I had to do an animation of this song.)

Sadly, ABBA did not perform this song ever except for an early mix of it in the ABBA in Switzerland TV special, but again, their performance of it is really, really good, one of my favorite of all their performances. 

Also fun fact, this is the only other ABBA song to mention a title of monarchy in the song title, the other being Dancing Queen.

Song Analysis - Summer Night City

 On 29th of May, 1978, ABBA began working on a track that ultimately ended up taking them a very, very long time to be satisfied with.  The song is a very disco-inspired dance able track that is basically a tribute to ABBA's beloved Stockholm and the nightlife, with lead vocals from Bjorn, Agnetha, and Frida.  I believe we have some Benny in there too, but I wouldn't say he's a lead vocalist.

Originally the song had an extended, slow introduction of ~43 seconds with mostly Bjorn's vocals prominent, with Agnetha and Frida's vocals buried in the far back of in the mix.  Then it jumps into the energetic, upbeat track that we're all very familiar with.  As the song was quite long, at around 4:14, when they were editing the song for a single release, they cut out the entire intro with I think the intention to include the full version on their forthcoming album.  However, Summer Night City never ended up making it onto the Voulez-Vous album, instead remaining a single.

While being quite modern, with lots of synths and strings that were popular in disco tracks of the mid-late 70s, the song in a way feels like a throwback to some of ABBA's earliest songs, with some back and forth singing between the boys and the girls in the hook? I think it's called.  While totally different subject matter and music style, it kind of reminds me of People Need Love, Love Isn't Easy (But It Sure Is Hard Enough) and He Is Your Brother, though Agnetha and Frida sing most of the song with the guys going in and out rather than the other way around as such in three early ABBA songs mentioned.

The intro begins with the line, "End of night, a new day dawning, and the first birds start to sing.  In the pale light of the morning, nothing's worth remembering.  It's a dream, it's out of reach, scattered driftwood on a beach," very much setting the mood and scene of the song.  Of course as a bird-lover I love the reference to birds, and Benny clearly did too because he is apparently a very big fan of birds and I bet he is behind the many reference to birds in ABBA's songs. 

The song is basically set in the late nights/early morning, as people basically party, dance, have fun and do whatever they want in this nightlife atmosphere.  I've been reading Carl Magnus Palm's ABBA biography, Bright Lights, Dark Shadows (I will be reviewing it when I'm done and I HAVE THOUGHTS) and it seems that the ABBA members, more specifically Benny and Frida, were frequent visitors to various clubs and clubs and the like, and while I wouldn't know, i've never done anything like that, I think this song really captures the essence of the late night party life.  Especially in the first pre-chorus, as Bjorn sings, "I know what's waiting there for me.  Tonight I'm loose and fancy-free."  

 Much like my confusion when I hear the line "If you like makin' love at midnight, in the dunes on the cape" in Escape (The Piña Colada Song) by Rupert Holmes, when I hear the line "Walking in the moonlight, love-making in a park," in Summer Night City, I just can't help but think of how UNSANITARY and gross that sounds.  And also how impolite that is.  Like imagine you're just strolling around Stockholm in the late evening, enjoying "short wonderful nights," after a "long, lazy day," as described by Agnetha in the ABBA in Japan Televesion Special, and you see people with no regard to privacy or anything just making love in the park.  That sounds disgusting.  Hahahha. So far in my two recent reads of Carl Magnus Palm Books, Bright Lights, Dark Shadows, and ABBA on Record, he makes a big deal on how record company executives were shocked and panicking that it sounded like Bjorn was singing "f***ing in the moonlight," towards the end of the song, rather than "walking in the moonlight," and as someone who has heard to crass language but doesn't use language like that ever, even when I first heard the song without even reading the lyrics and understanding what they were saying, I have never once heard the words sounds like that.  And even now when I try to see if I can hear what the executives were hearing, I can't.  So I am just wondering how on earth they even heard that hahaha.

ABBA's vocals sound really good in this song, though they all sound kind of laid back and quiet almost.  Still good though.

Anyways, ABBA released the song without the intro as a single, and promoted it on various TV shows in Japan an nowhere else interestingly, but when ABBA went on to perform the song live on stage during their 1979/80 tour and even in 1981 on the Dick Cavett Meets ABBA special, they brought back the intro.  As much as I love the studio version of the track, I just have to say, ABBA's live version, specifically the one seen and heard in the TV special ABBA in Concert, is absolutely amazing.  They give the song so much more energy, the extended outro is incredible, and it's just such a good performance, and among my absolute favorite ABBA live performances.  The 1981 one is also really really good, like they sounded superb.  Summer Night City also shows up in ABBA Voyage as part of the futuristic-tron-style segment. 

So yeah, the song is great, fun, energetic, and even more fun live. :D  Here's a compilation of all their performances.

Song Analysis - Lovers (Live A Little Longer)

On June 5th, 1978, ABBA began working on another track for the up and coming studio album that so far was taking a long time to come up with.  Bjorn and Benny found inspiration quite low at this time, and the only song from these early writing and recording sessions to even appear on the final album was this song, Lovers (Live A Little Longer.)  

Up until this point, it can be argued that ABBA's music was mostly clean, and people of all age groups could comfortably ABBA's entire catalog, whereas now ABBA were stepping into more "explicitly" sexual themes in their songs with a new level of maturity.  I'm digressing a bit, but as people ABBA had given off "clean" energy - two couples, one married, the other engaged - and they didn't take any drugs and were overall very chill compared to other stars of their same era.  However they have plenty of "dirty" and also "mature" themed songs, and by that I mean literal mature things.  Like Knowing Me Knowing You, a song about two adults with children, who are divorcing.  To name a few "dirty" songs off the top of my head, I'm thinking of Honey Honey, Rock Me, and arguably, Gonna Sing You My Love Song and Why Did It Have To Be Me.   And on the mature side, we have One Man, One Woman and Knowing Me, Knowing You.  So like, in my humble opinion, ABBA have never been "clean & innocent," so I'm not surprised or concerned that the album Voulez-Vous has more sexual themes.

Anyways, Lovers (Live A Little Longer) is said to be a song inspired a headline that Bjorn may have seen.  I'm not 100% certain on the validity of that, but regardless, in the song, the narrator is sharing this incredible news that she just read in the paper that day, that a physician has made the claim that love is a longevity factor, and Lovers who Make Love together will live longer than the average human who does not!  So, the narrator of the song is super hyped by this and is like, "alright, let's start right away!" 

Honestly the song to me always seemed kinda not overly serious, a bit like "Two For The Price Of One" and "Crazy World," like it's not to be taken all that seriously and is kinda funny, but the production of the song is quite serious.  Like Frida, who sings lead on this song, has these extremely sensual vocals and she sings so well, capturing the "matureness" of the song perfectly well. Agnetha has these incredible backing vocals are superb.  She has some backing vocals that are oddly not written down anywhere in the official lyrics, and it's really hard to decipher what she's singing in the second verse, but I think they are Verse 1: "Ooh, you know that" and Verse 2: "I'm exploding" or "aaaah, please don't wait" and no one really knows that they are.  I'd really love it if Bjorn and Benny could clear it up for us someday hahahahhaha. 

There are also some really really really fun backing vocals in the chorus, which are literally just "lovers-live-a-little-longer-lovers-live-a-little-longer" over and over again and they make it sound so easy but I bet that was so hard to record in the studio hahahahaha.  Speaking of backing vocals, I don't really hear Bjorn and Benny anywhere on this track, except maybe in the second verse when they say "Making love is a dynamite drug, baby, so why don't we start right away?" as on the phrase "Making love" there's some added backing vocals, and maybe the boys added to that?  But again, I don't know.  

Also, just before the bridge, there are some lovely "aaaah-aaah-aah-aaaahs" in typical ABBA-style vocals from Agnetha and Frida, just the two of them singing in harmony and idk, just that one small part before the bridge is like my favorite part of the song.  I also really love the extra little "yeah"s at the end of the last chorus before the song ends.

Contrary to public belief, ABBA are not a Disco band.  They are a Pop band.  But they dabbled in many, many different styles.  Tropical Loveland is sort of ABBA's take on Reggae, I Saw It In The Mirror is their attempt at R&B, and so on and so forth.  The Voulez-Vous album contains songs that are very much inspired by Disco which was kinda popular at that time, but in my opinion, only songs like "As Good As New," "The King Has Lost His Crown," "If It Wasn't For The Nights", "Lovers (Live A Little Longer)," and "Kisses Of Fire" give disco vibes, and by that I mean ABBA's interpretation of Disco.  That leaves 5 other songs on the album that are not disco.  So yes they dabbled in Disco, but that doesn't make them a disco band.

Despite the fact that Lovers (Live A Little Longer) is a very good song, ABBA never performed it live in concert.  However, an early mix of the song did make its debut in February, 1979, along with a couple of other songs from the Voulez-Vous album.   I love this TV special, and this performance as well is a standout for me.  I love their costumes as well, being among my personal top favorite ABBA outfits.  This song is just so fun, and they captured that enjoyment in their performance perfectly!

Happy 79th Birthday, Björn!

 Today we celebrate one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Mr. Björn Ulvaeus' 79th birthday!  Happy, happy birthday dear Björn!  I hope he has the absolute greatest day celebrating with all of his family and friends!

Song Analysis - Free As A Bumble Bee

 On May 29th, 1978, Bjorn and Benny were working on yet another track for ABBA's upcoming album.  Usually Bjorn and Benny wrote would write songs and sing the demo versions for one or both of the ladies to sing, but this song never even made it past this demo stage.  Appearing at roughly 14:45 in ABBA Undeleted, the song, titled Free As A Bumblebee is a song about someone who is tired and down about the boring work week.  As the narrator sits waiting for the next bus traveling downtown, presumably on his way to his job office, he can't help but feel bad that he doesn't get to just sit and enjoy the beautiful weather.  If he wasn't forced to have to work, he could be as free as a bumble bee, taking a sip of every flower, buzzing around lazily.  It sounds like such a good live, analogous to a railroad bum by the track.  I mean, I'm not sure that is a good life, but maybe Bjorn and Benny are suggesting that being as free as a bumble bee isn't as freeing as it sounds, but compared to having to work all night and work all day to pay the bills they have to pay, it sounds so much nicer, being able to actually enjoy the outdoors, lie back in the grass, and chew on a straw!

  Bjorn and Benny sing this simple demo track all together, including the higher pitched vocals in the background during the chorus that sound almost just like Agnetha. I believe they pitched up their own vocals to get that effect, but it just Bjorn and Benny with no involvement from the ladies.  

  I've already talked about this a bit in my post about I Am An A, but this track reuses the melody of the chorus of I Am An A.  Obviously Bjorn and Benny always liked that piece of music and wanted to salvage it into a proper song at some point, but Free As A Bumble Bee just wasn't it.  It wasn't until 1984 when the same original I Am An A appeared in Bjorn and Benny's song, I Know Him So Well, from the musical Chess.

  I like this song.  I like the songs that reference nature, and sunny, beautiful days.  Even though this song
is so short and not even finished, the first couple of lines, "it’s a crying shame isn’t it the beautiful weather.  If I could have my way well, I would not be working on a day like this I know what I’d like to be..." already paints such vivid imagery.

While this song about a bumble bee never officially got released in full, only being included as a mere, roughly two minute long snippet, ABBA did end up with a song about bumble bees many, many years later on their 2021 album, Voyage, on a track simply called Bumble Bee.  The two songs have nothing to do with each other, the only connection being that hey both star bumble bees, but I guess Bjorn and Benny have just always liked them, :'D

The Problem With ABBA Documentaries

 So recently a documentary about ABBA, titled ABBA: Against The Odds, or Sagan Om ABBA, was released in celebration of ABBA's 50th anniversary since winning Waterloo.  The 90 minute or so documentary claimed to tell "the epic story of ABBA’s greatest period of musical achievement framed between the albums ‘Arrival’ (1976) and ‘Super Trooper’ (1980), this is the story of ABBA’s deeply personal and perilous journey through the band’s most transformative years and rise to global fame."  Directed by James Rogan, a credible director who previously made a really cool documentary about Queen that featured a lot of rare, unseen, and archival footage and audio of the band (I haven't actually seen this documentary but I've heard good things about it), claimed that this documentary would also do the same, giving ABBA the same treatment that he gave to Queen. 

From the director's own website: "ABBA: Against The Odds will see a host of European broadcasters including BBC, ARD/WDR, France Télévisions, SVT and DR unite and come together to fund the feature film detailing the incredible story of the renowned group featuring re-discovered archive, exclusive never-before-seen stills and previously unheard stories. The film is set to be a roller-coaster journey of love, struggle, fame and – of course – epic songs."

 

So last night I got the chance to watch this documentary, specifically the Swedish version Sagan Om ABBA.  Seeing as a lot of it was in Swedish with no subtitles and I was watching it on 2x speed, I couldn't really understand a lot of it, but that's not to say I didn't follow.

 

The documentary was mostly made up on old audios and interviews from the 70s and beyond from the ABBA members.  I think a lot of the audio of Agnetha talking in English is from 2013 during some of the many interviews Agnetha did to promote her album A.  I think there were some modern interview audios from DJ Richard Skinner, some other people who were sort of involved with ABBA in the 70s, Bjorn, Benny, Ingmarie Halling, and Carl Magnus Palm, but that's just about it.   

 

Granted I couldn't understand half the documentary because I do not understand Swedish, but the story hardly mentioned anything about ABBA's actual story, just the basic you know, Bjorn met Agnetha, fell in love with her, and Benny met Frida, fell in love with her, etc.  It very briefly talks about their success with Waterloo that started it all, and kinda just jumps you straight into Dancing Queen era and you know, all about Dancing Queen, discussion of ABBA and all their Money Money Money, ABBA's DISCO era :O :O :O :O, and then Bjorn and Agnetha breaking up.  And a very brief in passing mention of Benny and Frida's divorce, despite the fact that that event happened after 1980.  And the End.

 

I've seen this happen in a lot of documentaries about ABBA, but the main focus is basically all about Bjorn and Agnetha.  Literally close to the beginning of the first documentary (the documentary was split into two 45 minute segments for some reason), I think it was Richard Skinner talking about how when he first met Agnetha and Bjorn in 1974, they were like one unit.  And I knew from that moment this documentary would be only focusing on them.  The documentary focuses a ton on how in 1978, Bjorn and Agnetha were having marriage struggles, and omg Frida and Benny had to get married while the other half of ABBA's marriage were falling apart, but that's like the only thing this documentary really focuses on their relationship. It's like Bjorn, Agnetha, and Dancing Queen are the only thing that matters to people, which is wrong.

 

Speaking of Agnetha, like many other documentaries and books on ABBA, this documentary makes such A BIG DEAL on how touring and traveling and all the ABBA things were SO BAD for Agnetha, and she was miserable and sad all the time and enjoyed NONE of it.  All she wanted to do was be with her kids, and the other members were NEVER supportive of her.  Life for Agnetha Faltskog was TERRIBLE and HORRIBLE.  The poor, tortured, miserable blond bombshell of ABBA.   Life was so hard.  But like, yes she didn't like touring, she didn't like being separated from her children, but she was also a member of ABBA and she did in fact enjoy that feeling of performing on stage.  She certainly preferred being in the studio more than touring, in fact all the ABBA members preferred being in the studio than touring, but she did tour and she did well. 

 

Also kudos to this documentary for being one of the only documentaries to EVER say that the way the Australian press treated Agnetha in regards to her butt was disrespectful.  Every other documentary I've seen if like "omg Agnetha has this sexiest bottom ever" but they don't ever talk about how rude and disrespectful it was to treat her like that.

 

I wish this documentary talked more on that magic of ABBA's music.  The sound, the creation of some of their most incredible songs.  The magical blend between all four of their voices, the layers upon layers of harmonies.  You know, what makes ABBA's sound unique.  But no, why talk about that when you can focus on the drama of it all instead?????

 

On the topic of rare unseen footage, I can tell you with certainty that there is only ~30 seconds of unseen footage. Everything else has been seen before.  The footage is as follows: 1. The ABBA members gathered around the piano in the Polar Music Offices singing acoustic performance of Fernando, but there is talking over it so you can barely hear them. 2. ABBA rehearsing for their Edmonton, Canada Show.  The audio is muted with just talking over it.  3. ABBA either about to go on stage or leaving the stage.  They included this scene around the time of the Boston plane fiasco, possibly indicating that this footage is from Boston but I don't think that's the case.  Maybe it's from the UK or Canada. Who knows.  Regardless, but it has no audio, just talking over the video.  And that's it!!

Yes the 30 seconds of truly unseen footage was a treat, but this documentary was such a disappointment.  Honestly, with the piecing together of different audio segments and interviews, this documentary was very much in the vain of my ABBA In Their Own Words amateur documentary that I put together once.  And I'm only an amateur, I don't have access to archival footage and could only use what I had access to on YouTube, and so far, despite it being 3-4 years since I made it, I only have 1 part, and it only goes up to winning Eurovision.  But my documentary is better.  So if you want to watch a respectful documentary that is actually accurate, why not give my documentary a watch, and honestly, just don't waste your time with these so called ABBA documentaries because they are just so bad.

20 years ago today...

 It was 20 years ago today, in 2004, that Agnetha released her fourth English language solo album, My Colouring Book.  The album comprises of 13 covers of some of Agnetha's favorite songs from her childhood and throughout the early 70s, songs that she loves and remind her of happier times, exactly how some of us feel when we listen to her songs and ABBA's songs.  

I've always loved this album.  I mean I love all of her work, but this album is quite special.  It was the first time Agnetha had released a new album since her 1987 album, I Stand Alone.  Her voice is exceptionally strong on this album despite it being 17 years since she released anything, and her sings all of the songs with such passion and emotion.  Although I'm not the biggest fan of cover songs, I personally always believe that the original versions are best, I've never had a problem with covers that are respectful of the original work, not changing too much but also adding a very minuscule touch of originality.  Throughout Agnetha's entire career, she has covered a lot of artists but always did it in the best way, and the same goes for this album.  

Coincidentally, not realizing this album was coming up on it's 20th anniversary, I listened to this album in full a couple of days ago while drawing, and it's still such a good song.  I like all the tracks, well except for Past, Present, Future as that track is just so weird to me (this is my personal feelings on the song itself, not on Agnetha's presentation of the song!), but my top favorite would have to be I Can't Reach Your Heart, Sometimes When I'm Dreaming, and Love Me With All Your Heart.  But again, all the tracks are good.

 One of my favorite thing about Agnetha is that she makes music on her own terms.  She doesn't give into public pressure to release more music, she does project was just one entirely made up of her own passion for artists and songs she loves, and she did it completely out of her own volition.  She kept promotion of it to a minimum, as that seems to be one of her least favorite parts of making music, yet it went on to be quite successful.  And to this day, I think, it still is a really good, successful album.  

I've mention in the past how Agnetha's A album from 2013 was the first solo project from either of the ladies of ABBA that I was actively there for.  I didn't know of ABBA yet at all when this album came back - I was only three years old, so I couldn't have been aware of it, but it's nice to know that I was around at the time of this album's release. :)

Song Analysis - Lovelight

 In April 1978, ABBA began working on songs for their next album, a task that would end up taking a lot longer than they initially anticipated.  Voulez-Vouz, the album, I think is the album that took the longest to write and record for some reason.  At this point in time, ABBA had really established themselves as an act that makes epic songs, as several singles from their last two albums were big hits, so there's a lot to do to make sure lived up to this new image of themselves.

The first song ABBA began working on was Lovelight.  The song is honestly suck a happy song song about finding someone and realizing it's love. Sang by Agnetha and Frida in some of my absolute favorite vocals by them, the song begins with the narrator talking about how normally she hates her room.  It's dark, gloomy, dreary, especially as the windows face the backyard, not allowing for much natural light to come in.  Yet, somehow, she doens't feel that way anymore and she's like, "why?"  The way they sing the verses is like they're almost singing it in unison, same key and pitch, but Agnetha is just every so slightly higher and Frida ever so slightly lower, and you end up with that beautiful blending of voices that sounds almost metallic if that makes any sense.  Like I don't know of any better way to describe it.  I love how you can pick up on their individual voices, but their voices just complement each other so well.  It's just perfect.

Agnetha sings the pre-chorus, which is "this old dirty ceiling seems a little whiter.  When you walked into the room it all got so much brighter." followed by the chorus.  Behind Agnetha's vocals in the pre-chorus are some beautiful "Oooh"s, "Aaaah"s and "du-du-du-du"s, and it's almost heavenly.

The chorus is sang by both Agnetha and Frida together again, with some backing vocals from Bjorn and Benny which is either "Your lovelight shining" or just "lovelight shining."   It's basically talking abut how everything around this amazing guy that has brightened up her life must have a lovelight!  And no matter where she is, even when he isn't there, she feels his love.  And now she won't let him out of her sight ever because she cannot lose him or his lovelight.

The next verse is about how the first time this guy took the narrator to the movies, and they had decided to meet on a corner downtown.  She stood there waiting when he came up from behind and kissed her.  How
romantic. :')  And then, just like that, the traffic seemed to get a little lighter.  Ever since this guy came into her life, things have become so much easier and brighter.  

After the next chorus, there's a bridge, which is "And I feel so good, and I feel so fine, and I know that you must have a lovelight." followed by another chorus and the song ends.

There is some amazing guitar on this song, played by Lasse Wellander.  in both the intro which is quite the epic intro in my opinion, with some booming drums and it just throws you into the song.  The working title of the song was called "Heroes," and while I don't have any further context to why it was called that and what it was about, I will say the song, especially the intro, do give off superhero TV show vibes. 

I really like this era of ABBA songs.  I mean I love all ABBA songs, but in this era, there were a lot of just pure, happy songs that radiate joy, just like this song.  Other songs from this era that are emanate that same joy are Just A Notion, Kisses Of Fire, and possibly even Lovers (Live A Little Longer.)  There are also plenty of sad ABBA songs too from this era, but I'm focusing on the happy right now.  From 1980 onwards, the pure happy ABBA songs became far and few, and the last one that I can think of that doen't have any negative connotations is Head Over Heels.  

Anyway, Lovelight was first released as the B-side to ABBA's Chiquitita single, in January, 1979.  But the song didn't end up making it onto ABBA's Voulez-Vous album.  Interestingly though, when the song was included on the More ABBA Gold CD in 1993, the song included an alternate mix to the one that was originally released in 1979.  The original version is 3:46 long, whereas the alternate mix was 3:18.  

All in all, I LOVE this song to pieces.  I love happy songs, I love happy music (even if the lyrics are sad like a lot of ABBA songs are hahahah), and this song has both.  And Agnetha and Frida's vocals are just superb!

Song Analysis - Move On

 Move On is probably one ABBA's most philosophical songs, basically discussing the topic of life, and how wonderful it is to live. The song is beautiful, and thoughtful, and I cannot tell you how much I love this song.  The gist of the song is basically, the purpose and cycle of life, and how life just always moves on.  People have been on the earth since the dawn of time, some are voyagers, other settlers.  Humans are on an everlasting journey through space and time, traveling every country and traveling even within your mind.  And ultimately, it's so special to be alive, to be a part of all of this.  I especially love the line in the chorus, "how I treasure every minute, being part of it being in it, with the urge to move on," as well as the last part of the third chorus, "I see it and I hear it but how can I explain the wonder of the moment, to be alive, to feel the sun that follows every rain." 

Recorded in October of 1977, the song begins with a spoken verse from Bjorn, who is talking in his most American accent, and his voice is deepened slightly.  There are plenty of spoken phrases throughout ABBA's discography (Take A Chance On Me, Hasta Manana, I Wonder, just to name a few), but they've never had a whole spoken verse before.  Underneath Bjorn's spoken verse are some very beautiful

After Bjorn's spoken verse, you're catapulted into honestly one of the most beautiful choruses that ABBA have ever written, in my opinion.  You have joint vocals from Agnetha and Frida, as well as some some deeper harmonies from the boys, especially on the phrase "Move On."  Their vocals are just so excellent on this song, and everytime I hear the word "Move On" in the chorus, it's just wow.   

The next verse is sang by Agnetha alone.  Then in the following chorus, you get some beautiful "la-la-la-la-la-la-la"s in the background.  I know both girls sing those backing vocals together, but I hear Frida quite prominently, it she sounds amazing in this song.  She doesn't really get a solo spot in this song, but her vocals are still superb, especially in the third and last verse when she harmonizes with Agnetha.  

Then we have another absolutely superb chorus, followed by more "la-la-la-la-la-la-la"s.  Everything about this song is just perfect in my opinion.  Both ladies vocals are literally at their best, and the way everyone's voices blend together is so beautiful.  The instruments, too, and the soundscape are just perfect.  Benny's got some beautiful keyboard and piano throughout the song.  This song also gives off that ethereal and heavenly vibe, and it's just beautiful.

ABBA unfortunately never performed this song live, though I bet it would have sounded amazing, though it would probably be hard to capture all those layers and layers of harmonies in a live setting.  However, in January of 1980, for ABBA's Gracias Por La Musica album, Agnetha and Frida rerecorded this song in Spanish.  Bjorn and Benny were not present for the recording of this album, so Agnetha and Frida tackled all the vocal harmonies and singing alone.  As a result, Agnetha sang out the first verse rather than speak it out, and while Agnetha and Frida performed this song super well, the lack of Bjorn and Benny, especially on the line "Move On"," causes to song to lost some of it's best qualities.  It's still good, and Agnetha and Frida both sound amazing harmonizing together, especially during the third verse, I just prefer the original English version over the Spanish one.

The Spanish lyrics are generally the same as the English version.  Though my translation through Google Translate was not cutting it hahahaha, like it was writing weird stuff ("nothing matters much anymore yes I fart sincerely know what, i tried".....????? What the heck????), so today's translation is via the website, lyrictranslate.com.

The first verse is: 

It is said that the anxious
Hide a peaceful soul.
A voyager or a missionary
They go much further.
If I look to the heavens
Or inside myself, I do not know.
Well, it doesn't matter much
As long as I can truly
Know that I've tried.

Chorus: 

Like the swell on the ocean
People move on.
Like the howling of the wind
Life moves on.
Like the sun in the morning
That demands you to rise
I treasure the moment.
I live and feel and
My intention
Is to do just that and to move on.

Second verse: 

I've traveled all parts
In my mind.
We are always walking
Without rhyme or reason.
Who knows the answers?
Who can choose
When there's a difference?
We know that in every being
There's a will to live.

Third verse:

The breeze that gently
Caresses the sea
And all the gulls
That ceaselessly fly
This is what I see and feel.
And I don’t know how to explain it,
This splendid moment.
To be born to feel the rain
and the sun
To live and to enjoy.

Now, I just want to say, I have always loved this song, but this song to me feels like something to do with ABBA's current avatar show, ABBA Voyage.  In a way, ABBA always get to be a part of life, and get to live on for all eternity as digital avatars, and while live continues to move on, they will too.  Though the line in the first verse, "A voyager and a settler..." and the line in the second verse, "It seems we're on a journey, a trip through space and time," really feel like a reference to ABBA's future Voyage show.

In the show, Benny's Avatar comes onto the stage just before performing SOS, and gives a speech something along the lines of: "To be, or not to be?  That is no longer the question.  So this is how it feels to be Doctor Who, traveling through time and space, and never getting any older.  I'll tell you something, this is really me.  I'm really Benny, not just an image.  I just look terribly good for my age.  The last time we played Lonodn was in 1979.  And if you told us then that we'd be back here to play in the 21st century, I would say, "Yes!"  And here we are, and here are all of you, the 5th part of ABBA.  The song goes, "Without a song or a dance, what are we?" That is the question.  So thank you all for being here [...]"  I know the mention of Time and Space has to do with Doctor Who and how they are a time traveler, traveling through time and space, but like come on, how can that not also be a reference to Move On? 

So while Move On is not directly referenced in the ABBA Voyage show nor is it included in the set list, I honestly think it would have been a perfect fit, and to me, along with the joy it always brings me when I hear this song, I now get an extra burst of joy because it reminds me of ABBA's amazing show that reunited the four of them together. :')

Song Analysis - Take A Chance On Me

 This song is honestly yet another happy ABBA song, very much inspiring me of some of their early hits like Mamma Mia and the like.  It's extremely cheerful, exciting, and about someone's deep desire to get with a person.  I'm honestly not too sure what this sound could be about.  Is it a a song about someone who like has a major crush or attachment or even obsession to another person and she's pining for his attention?  Is it about someone trying to get a person to have a secret affair with her despite the fact that he's already in a relationship or something like that?  I don't actually know, and I guess it's up to us to interpret it how we like.

Recorded in August, 1977, the song begins with the amazing acapella of just Agnetha and Frida singing "if you change your mind, I'm the first in line..." with Bjorn and Benny's epic "Take-a-chance-take-a-chance-take-a-take-a-chance-chance" repeating throughout.  We all know the story by know, but Bjorn was inspired to write the lyrics when he was out jogging and the beat/rhythm that he'd hear while out running was the inspiration for the phrase "Take a chance."

The song begins with the narrator, played by Agnetha and Frida, telling this guy that if he's ever interested in having an affair with her, which I'm assuming he initially said no to because she's asking him if he ever changes his mind, that she'll always be here no matter what.  If he's ever alone, she's still free and available for whatever his heart desires.  In the first verse, the narrator suggests that they could just go dancing or walking, listen to music together or you know, just get to know each other better.  But she also is a bit obsessed, as she also spends a lot of time dreaming about this guy and admits that she just "can't let go." In the second verse, she appears to be a little more deranged haha, stating that he can take his time, but she knows she's going to get him.  She's in no hurry, she will get him. 

Honestly the line "You don't wanna hurt me, Baby don't worry, I ain't gonna let you," makes me think maybe this guy is an emotionally unavailable guy and he's like "No, I don't want to be with you." and she's like "You sure??  You sure about that???  ARE YOU SURE?" and doesn't want to take no for an
answer because she really likes this guy. Like a lot. Especially the line "Let me tell you now, my love is strong enough to last when things are rough.  It’s magic!  You say that I waste my time, but I can’t get you off my mind.  No I can’t let go, ’cause I love you so." He doesn't want to start any romantic affair with her because he's afraid that if things get rough, he'll hurt her somehow, but she's like "NO!  I can take it, my love for you is so strong!"  (Unrelated note - my interpretation of this song is definitely starting to sound like my own fiction story that I've been writing for the last decade hahaha, and is starting to give me a greater appreciation for the song hehe.)

The song is mostly sang by Agnetha and Frida together with lots of harmonies upon harmonies throughout the choruses and backing vocals from Bjorn and Benny throughout, but Agnetha gets a lot of solo spots.  She has some spoke word lines, "That's all I ask of you honey" and "c'mon, give me a break will you" during the post-choruses, and sings the pre-chorus alone as well.  Everybody sounds amazing in this song, but Agnetha's vocals are exceptionally amazing in this song.  

While Frida doesn't get any solo spots in the studio recording, while performing the song live during the 1979 tour, in the post-chorus where they sing "Take a chance on me, (insert spoken word line from Agnetha), take a chance on me," Frida sings the "Take a chance on me"s alone.  

Now, prior to the song becoming Take A Chance On Me, the song had the working title "Billy Boy", and an instrumental version of it is heard in ABBA Undeleted at around the 1:44 mark, and lasts until 3:30.  Though according to ABBA on Record by Carl Magnus Palm, there were actual lyrics to the song as well that included the intro line "Here comes Billy Boy!" or something along those lines.  So Billy Boy isn't just a random title that has no connection to the song.  

Speaking of live performances, we have two official live recordings, one from ABBA's live album from 1986, and another from the 2014 live album.  When ABBA performed the song live, they added this really fun outro, "You say that I waste my time, but I can't get you off my miiiind!  It's magic!" but in 1978 when performing the song on a couple of TV shows, they have a different ending, where the song ends with all four members singing acapella, "Take a chance take a chance take-a take-a chance-chance, take a chance take a chance, take-a take-a chance."  

Anyways, ABBA performed this song on TV a good number of times throughout 1978 and early 1979.  (They even performed the song live on the Olivia! show.)  As usual, here is a compilation of all their officially recorded performances.

Song Analysis - Hole In Your Soul

 Hole In Your Soul is one of a few just ridiculously happy ABBA songs.  The song is uplifting, exciting, feel good.  There's no breakups, no heartbreak.  Just a song about music, more specifically Rock 'n roll music, being all you need to feel better.  Or to fill the hole in your soul. 

The song starts with acknowledging that sometimes people feel bad, or get the blues (a common ABBA expression).  Sometimes things are bad, worse, and worst, and life feels burdensome.  However ABBA are here to offer you a solution to all your troubles, something that will loosen you up and making you feel better: Rock 'N Roll!  

The chorus is basically just ABBA reminding you that Rock' n roll is all you need to fill the hole in your soul.  While the rest of the song is sung by Agnetha and Frida in unison and a bit sped up so they sound a little bit like chipmunks, a style that a lot of ABBA's earlier Waterloo-era songs had so it's nice to see them use that style again, Bjorn and Benny are featured singing along with the girls in the chorus, but in a much lower and deeper voice.  (They also sing some backing vocals during the verses as well.)

In the second verse, in common ABBA style, ABBA mention the names of some people.  Other songs that mention names up until this point, specifically random characters that ABBA made up for songs, are Me And Bobby And Bobby's Brother, Nina, Pretty Ballerina, Suzy-Hang-Around, Sitting In The Palmtree, My Mama Said, Rikky Rock'N Roller, Hey Hey Helen, So Long, Crazy World, That's Me, Fernando, and Happy Hawaii.  (Post HIYS - Rubber Ball Man, Our Last Summer, Elaine, Two For The Price Of One, and I Can Be That Woman, and Keep An Eye On Dan.)  While the names in Hole In Your Soul seem like the usual random names that ABBA came up with, they actually named them after real people they knew.  According to ABBA Omnibus, their friend Sam the chauffeur references is an actual chauffeur ABBA met in the US, Annie who goes to school references a secretary of Atlantic Records in the US, specifically the secretary to Jerry who works at the office who is referencing Jerry Greenberg of Atlantic Records.  And Sue who lies by the pool is possibly in reference to the secretary of the British ABBA Fan Club.  The fact that we can trace these random friends listed in Hole In Your Soul to actual people ABBA knew makes me wonder if any of the other fictional characters that show up in ABBA's songs are referencing real people (I know Tammy the Dog in I Can Be That Woman is a tribute to the country singer Tammy Wynette).  Just a thought.

One of the highlights of the song is the bridge.  So far Hole In Your Soul has featured three classic ABBA-isms: higher pitched, chipmunk-y vocals, names, and using the word blue to describe feeling/emotion, and on top of that, we also have the use of "Aha".  Anyways, I already mentioned in my post on Get On The Carousel how the melody used in the bridge of Hole In Your Soul was repurposed from Get On The Carousel.  If I'm being honest, I don't fully know what the bridge means hahaha.  

The bridge is: Aha, you paint your world and use all colours.  Aha, and then you find it all comes out too bright.  You know it's only a lie! Aha, the songs you sing are too romantic.  Aha, and when you want the truth, they only spit in your eye!  Oh yeah, they're only telling you lies.  Oh yeah, there's gotta be rock 'n' roll, to fill the hole in your soul.  

But as I mentioned, the real highlight is Agnetha's high note on the last "To fill the hole in your soul."  The fact that she carried this almost effortless sounding high note possibly even while lying down as she was pregnant while recording this album and was told to take it as easily as possible is just incredible.  

The last verse is a repeat of the first verse, and then they just repeat the line "it's gotta be rock n roll, to fill the hole in your soul" over and over again until the song ends.  

This song is very rock influenced, though not quite the heavy sounding rock energy that ABBA attempted in songs like Hey Hey Helen, Watch Out, and King Kong Song.  It's extremely fun, and exciting, and is quite the energized track.  The studio version is great, but dare I say, when ABBA performed this song live during the 1979/80 tour as one of the final songs on the setlist, it became even better!  They really bring out the energy in this song, bring out even more rock elements with more prominent guitars. All four of them got up at the front of the stage during the third verse, and Bjorn and Benny even sing part of the next chorus together while jumping up and down.  They also have an extended outro for the song, which also reused some elements from the ending of Get On The Carousel live in 1977. 

So far we have three different recordings of Hole In Your Soul - The studio version, the live version from ABBA in Concert, and the live version from the final night at Wembley released on the live album in 2014.  And all three versions are epic.  There's also plenty of bootleg recordings from other stops on the 1979 tour and fan footage too.

However, Hole In Your Soul doesn't end there. If you're among the many people who have gone to see ABBA voyage, Hole In Your Soul, which is considered a rather obscure track as it's not featured on ABBA Gold or More ABBA Gold so isn't a big hit, is the second track on the setlist, going from the first song, the epic but slow and dramatic The Visitors, to the upbeat and rocky Hole In Your Soul.  I love this choice of a song because in a way it was one of the last songs performed on the 1979 setlist, with the Visitors being one of ABBA's last songs they ever recorded prior to the 40 year hiatus haha.  I haven't seen ABBA Voyage live yet, but I have seen some sneaky clips that were on the internet for a bit before immediately getting taken down, and WOW the Avatars really rock on stage for this song.  They even have some originally unheard Frida vocals during the bridge, so she sings "they only spit in your eye! They’re only tellin’ you lies! There’s gotta be rock ’n roll!"  followed by Agnetha's high note.  In the studio version all four sing that line together.  the Avatars also recreate Bjorn and Benny's jumping together like they did in 1979.

Anyway, here's ABBA's live performance as seen in ABBA in Concert.  :) 

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.

ABBA On Record - My Review

I got my copy of Carl Magnus Palm's newest ABBA book about three or four weeks ago, and ever since have been giving it a thorough read, and finally finishing the book last night.  Despite the fact that Carl Magnus Palm has written many ABBA books over the years, back when I was a frequent visitor of my local library and would ask them to inter-library loan all the ABBA books I could think of, I surprisingly had never read any of his original, published books before.  My first official Carl Magnus Palm book that I've ever read was his ABBA at 50 book that he did in 2022 for ABBA's 50th anniversary since People Need Love, and I unfortunately wasn't very impressed.  

I've always known that Carl Magnus Palm is a very lucky ABBA fan/ABBA historian, so I had gone into ABBA at 50 with high hopes, and.... I was disappointed.  There was something about it that gave off pretentious vibes, and I've mentioned in the past that CMP seems to have this vendetta against Stig Anderson, ABBA's manager, and it gave me the ick.  

But, seeing as ABBA on Record was CMP's newest big book venture, and there was a lot of hype going around about his book, I decided maybe it would be worth it, so I pre-ordered it. 

Now I just need to say, my error entirely, I read the title, "ABBA on Record - Packaged, Promoted, Reviewed" as if the book was packaged, promoted, and reviewed by ABBA and that this was like an officially authorized book.  I did not realize this book was entirely about the packaging, promotion, and reviews of ABBA's music/albums once ABBA were done with their part of actually making their music and how it becomes the record company's job to actually release their music to the world.  That's entirely my fault, but it left me a bit confused when I first started reading the book.

I will say, I now know so much about the music industry than I ever thought I needed to know and I don't know what to do with this information now haha.  Honestly it was quite a fascinating read, and it's interesting reading about ABBA's music from the perspective of the music industry and trying to promote them and figure out the best time to release a new album or single, deciding the next song to release as a single, and the different efforts that were done to promote ABBA in various countries under many different record labels.  I learned a lot of about the different key players involved in ABBA's success in the UK and Australia, and all about the various times ABBA tried to reach the US but weren't always successful.  It's interesting how to me, if an album/single even makes into the top 50 of the US Billboard charts, I think that's quite an achievement, but to ABBA's record label, it doesn't mean anything unless they reach the number 1 spot, which did happen with Dancing Queen in 1976, but like, Waterloo reaching a 6, The Winner Takes It All reaching an 8, Take A Chance On Me a 3, and Knowing Me, Knowing You and a bunch of other songs reaching a 14/15, that's not bad!  Yeah a lot of singles also flopped in the US, not even getting into the top 50 spot, but to chart at all still means something.  But that's just my opinion.

Interestingly in the main section of this book, the ABBA members aren't that big of a focus.  Like most of the book is about all the music industry people, and lots of talk about Stig and his ways of promoting ABBA, whether it was promising things or making statements about/for ABBA that didn't end up coming to fruition or being very ambitious.  I never realized how much went into releasing music, and this book makes ABBA seem so small in comparison to all the people involved, yet prior to reading this book, I would never have thought this many people were involved and thought it was all about ABBA.

In terms of talking about Stig, most of what CMP wrote about Stig was not good or bad, just stating facts, but especially in the beginning when Stig is first introduced, I still feel like the author has some personal beef against ABBA's fiery and perhaps overly ambitious manager, and specifically in the early parts of the book, everything is said as if CMP is always hinting at how "Stig seemed nice, but wait till you see all the bad things he did later!"  Luckily, as this book didn't really go into much of ABBA's personal story details and instead focusing on the actual promotional efforts for their music, no discussion was made about ABBA's feud with Stig.  Which I appreciate.  

One of my favorite parts in the book was the discussion of the making and designing of each album's cover art.  Especially the ones that turned out to be quite complex, like the making of the self-titled album's cover and Super Trouper.  And I enjoyed the discussion on the Voyage cover art as well, especially as Baillie Walsh's methods are a lot different than say Rune Soderqvist, ABBA's main designer,'s methods. 

I was a little bit bored on the speculation that CMP does on the meaning behind each ABBA album's cover, like what any reader can interpret from the cover, what does it mean and why type things, but also, I do my own speculation as well, so after a while I actually began to enjoy the speculation parts.  

There was also a lot of sections that I felt weren't actually relevant to the story and ended up being mostly long and drawn out and boring.  Like there's this whole section devoted to the club scene in Stockholm, and Alexandra's club and the difficult history she had with business deals and splitting the company and wrongly using the title Alexandra on the new club that had nothing to do with Alexandra herself, and I just don't see the relevancy?  I feel like there was just a little too much information on this when it could have easily been summarized briefly to just a couple of paragraphs.

 Also, at the end of each piece of music that was release, be it single or album, Carl Magnus Palm would include reviews from that time on what so called professional music critics would say on ABBA's newest release, and gosh so many of these reviewers are gosh awful and mean. As an obsessed ABBA fan, I love and worship literally every piece of music ABBA have ever created, so seeing people criticize ABBA's music for things I literally love??? is so baffling to me.  Still, the reviews, especially the ridiculously rude and negative ones, made me laugh.  I know I'm overly positive when it comes to ABBA, but these people are just overly negative for no reason.  Music Critics are just impossible to please I guess.

Of course I'm a sucker for pictures in books, especially rare photographs, and this book did not disappoint.  Especially in late 1974/75, there are some rare photos from ABBA's late Autumn trip to the United States like when they appeared on the Mike Douglas show, as well as this super rare, unseen photo from the session of their self-titled album cover's photoshoot.  And I really enjoyed them.

The next section of this book was on the making of ABBA Voyage, written in the style of Carl Magnus Palm's previous book, ABBA The Complete Recording Sessions - Revised & Expanded.  I unfortunately have not been able to get my hands on that book (It is available as an ebook but I am a physical book girly and literally cannot read books on a digital device.)  Even though not a lot of new information was offered, it was nice to see everything in chronological order.  Also it was a little painful having to relive those 3 years since ABBA made the first announcement of the two new songs, and then the long long wait when they'd say "oh no the songs are coming they will be released soon" but no songs were released... until September 2021 of course.  I do very much appreciate that CMP did clarify some information on Just A Notion, explaining that all of the vocals and Lasse Wellander's guitar were taken from the original 1978 recording, but the last line of the song "I, I think it's more than a notion.  In a moment that dream is about to come true," was recorded in 2021.  Not much more information was shared about the two unreleased songs from the Voyage sessions, except that there was an early version of Ode To Freedom from 2019 that was completely different to the one that eventually got released, and that one of the songs was called Hit By A Train, but that's all that's said.  We know literally nothing else about what they sounded like.

But the real highlight of the book, for me at least, was the section on the Michael B. Tretow tapes.  Of course I'm definitely jealous of the fact that Carl Magnus Palm got to listen to all of this absolutely amazing and special material and I cannot, but also I'm glad he has shared some very detailed descriptions of what it's like.  There's this one part of Michael B. Tretow's tapes that was of when Agnetha and Frida were recording the vocals for That's Me, and we've always known that they'd give input on certain words or phrases or arrangements, but this recording actually reveals some of that and you get to hear (or more like read because fans like you and me just aren't privileged enough to get to hear these sort of things....) Agnetha and Frida in action.  I also like that we have a lot more context to the studio chatter that was included and interspersed throughout ABBA Undeleted, like there's a scene when Agnetha and Frida are mimicking a line from a comedy show/movie/film? that they'd seen and some audio issues they were having reminded them of it.  Also it's revealed that the demo track for Rock Me, titled Baby, is actually called "Didn't I", with the line "didn't I, didn't I" sung where Bjorn sings "Wanna be wanna be" in the finished version of the song.  And there's a lot more goodies that reveal how musical pieces that Bjorn and Benny would be working on in the early 70s would end up on music they'd write in the 90s and beyond, which just goes to show how long they've had these musical pieces in their heads.  Really really fascinating.  In this section though, I don't like how CMP references things from his Complete Recording Sessions book, like telling me that I can find more information in that book, but I literally cannot get my hands that book because it is sold out everywhere and no one is willing to give up their versions of the book!!  So please don't tell me that I can read more in that book when I legitimately, physically cannot.

In conclusion, if you take out the sections on Voyage and the Michael B. Tretow tapes, I'd give this book maybe a 6.5/10, but with the inclusion of those last two sections, my rating goes up to a 8.5/10.  I can't say this book was worth the ~$135 that I paid, but the fact that I got the book signed and addressed to me is very nice. :)

50 years of ABBA - celebrating ABBA's Eurovision Win

 It was exactly 50 years ago today, that ABBA won the Eurovision Song Contest.  They had done something so unique for the time, performing a more rocky song than had ever been performed before, crafting an intricate image that helped them to stand out.  They pushed the boundaries and ultimately created a new standard for all future Eurovision Song Contests. 

Agnetha, Bjorn, Benny, and Frida did an absolutely outstanding performance, with an amazing song, and an incredible appearance, and they couldn't have done it if not for their close bond and determination to win.

Their win was well deserved, and today we celebrate with them on this absolutely iconic and incredible day.  Happy 50th anniversary, ABBA.  Hip hip hurrah!