I moved out of my university flat this week! On top of all the cleaning, packing and crying over leaving my home of the past two years, I’ve been spending time with close friends who are still around to quell the melancholy and distract myself. We’ve been to the cinema twice to see Marvel’s Ant-Man and the Wasp and Mission Impossible: Fallout (for the second time!), and I’ll soon be staring at the big screen again to see Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again with my mum when I’m back home.
My parents took me to see the original back in 2008 and I was sort of ambivalent towards it. The only thing I really remember is giggling at French and Saunders’ parody of the film for Comic Relief and my contrarian defence of Pierce Brosnan for his singing. I didn’t think he was that bad (to be honest I didn’t have an opinion, I was just very fond of his Bond at the time).
I didn’t really have an opinion on ABBA back then either but to be quite honest I didn’t have much agency with my music taste until I was a teenager. That’s when I learned how to appreciate music by both actually listening to a fair bit and trying my best to make it, which changed my whole perspective.
Writing, performing and producing a song is an incredible feat in itself and I think it’s something that is massively underappreciated. You’re lucky if you can make one catchy music moment, but to have a discography chock full of them? Absolutely amazing.
Looking back on it now, ABBA are present on every party and pre-drinks playlist. Their adoration by so many is a testament to their timelessness. This is probably why I never paid much attention to them. They’ve always been there in the background of my life so I automatically dismissed them as plain and uninteresting, which is far from the truth. Although their 70’s production still adequately does the job, the melodies and lyrics it captured are timeless.
As the release of Mamma Mia!’s sequel encroached on us all, I was sceptical; was this film really necessary? Are there actually any more ABBA songs they can do that they didn’t have in the first one? But inevitably, I caught ABBA fever. Like I mentioned before, I started to notice the instances where they snuck into my life: my flatmate playing it whilst they cooked, Arcade Fire’s Everything Now bringing back Dancing Queen vibes and this fascinating Vice article over the tragedy of said song. It eventually led to me accompanying my mum to The Palace Theatre production of the musical in Manchester.
Originally, I agreed to go because of how much it would mean to her with the show being something I would have to endure, but as it started I realised how much I was enjoying rediscovering all their hits! The knowingly hamfisted segues into each track was such a joy to experience. Remember how Avengers: Infinity War maintained momentum with it’s exciting reintroductions of your favourite characters? It’s pretty much the same feeling. On top of that, the familiar tunes came in and once I recognised them I thought “Holy crap! That is an ABBA song isn’t it?! How could I forget?!” and as the show kept going my mind was blown away with the secondary revelation of “Wait, they made ALL of these amazing tracks?!”
So that’s the story of how I found myself in the unexpected position of looking forward to the sequel I initially pledged to ignore and listening to ABBA Gold on repeat.
To me, what makes ABBA so addictively catchy is their ability to entwine music and lyrics together to transmit a feeling with military precision. These are emotions and stories which are grounded and resonate with the audience brilliantly – because we all feel what they’re trying to convey at some point in our lives.
The best examples I have of this are my 3 favourite ABBA songs (for now) which have an amazing selection of magical moments/music sweet spots that I love to talk about:
Super Trouper, Knowing Me, Knowing You and Mamma Mia!
You’re probably wondering what exactly a musical ‘sweet spot’ is. Have you ever heard an ethereal, simply brilliant moment in a track which is so satisfying you can’t help but listen to the song again and again? Sweet spots can be a closing culmination of all the best elements of a track, other times they can be a jarring shift into a totally new melody or, in an even more non-descript way of saying it, the part where the song suddenly makes sense: the part when it ‘hits you’.
This is probably the closest I can come to conveying how these moments make you feel using words, but I can illustrate it best by showing you my personal favourites.
Super Trouper – ABBA
Super Trouper is obviously about the repetition of touring the world and performing every night. Homesickness from travelling all the time is one thing and fatique is another, but badly missing someone dear to you? That’s a heartbreaker. A great thing about this song is that it’s based off the band’s own experiences from their prior successes and Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus managed to draw from this to turn it into a romantic, fun yet sincere tale about anticipation of seeing a lover in the crowd. It’s also a testament to the narrative of ABBA and how this song would not have been written if these artists had not lived through the inspiring experience in the first place. This creates a kind of perpetual songwriting-inspiration engine based of their own development as humans.
Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Agnetha Fältskog’s lone, harmonic vocals create an iconic atmosphere within the first few seconds, emphasising the theme of loneliness and setting the scene with the song’s protagonist: a performer. Then Benny and Björn come in with their classic piano and guitar combination (at 0:17). This instrumental sequence is so bright and warm yet never fails to send a nostalgic twinge to your chest. Everytime I remember this part of the song exists I love it, because it perfectly replicates the feeling of longing for something or someone.
It’s sonic gold.
I feel as though this is the perfect place to mention the music video for Super Trouper, and a small detail I’m obssessed with. After the introductory vocals, the follow spot shines right into the camera and a flash teleports us to a parade of sorts full of carnival-esque performers with ABBA centre stage. However the shot starts with particular focus on a girl riding a horse in the corner of the room. You could say she looks bored, but I feel that she’s more sad than anything else. The camera zooms out to show how insignificant she is in the crowd, and when it cuts back to the crowd shot later on you almost instinctively find her to see if she’s okay. Could she be the protagonist of the song? Maybe Super Trouper isn’t the story of a lead singer or a band member, but centred around a minor back up dancer or performer on tour with the former?
After Benny and Björn’s instrumental, Anni-Frid sings the first verse (0:32) with one of my favourite ABBA lyrics…
I was sick and tired of everything
When I called you last night from Glasgow
Aaaaahhhh Glasgow! They sang Glasgow! Wait…Glasgow?! Of all the cities you could have picked to set your story in…and you pick Glasgow…but what about all the best romantic cities? Paris? Rome? Vienna?
Nope! Glasgow!
Having the protagonist call from Glasgow is super important to Super Trouper. It seems like a strange choice in the list of ‘Places to set your romantic song in!’ but has the important effect of making the story grounded. It could be any city but it’s quite obviously somewhere the protagonist is because of an obligation – their job. They have to be there. It could be anywhere else, but no, they’re stuck in a random corner of Europe and just want to hear their lover’s voice. Glasgow also works both within the context of the artist (knowing ABBA are from Sweden and creating that distance from ‘home’) and without, since it’s such an unconventional choice to set a song in this genre and theme, so the audience can easily catch on to how the protagonist truly feels behind the smiles they have when they’re on stage.
Facing twenty thousand of your friends
How can anyone be so lonely
At it’s heart, this song is about the emotional connection between two individuals and the first two lines of the second verse (1:50) emphasise the lack of one between all these people in the same room. Just like in life, you can be surrounded by so many people but sometimes nothing can stop you from feeling so alone.
Despite all of this, the protagonist stays strong for the person they want to see the most. It gets them through the exhaustion, the stress and monotany of performing the same show every night. The pre-chorus and chorus are when the song is lyrically at it’s brightest as the protagonist describes the feeling of finding out they’re loved one is going to be in the crowd.
I think that one of the most melodramatic quotes from Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar sums up the connection that Super Trouper is trying to describe:
I’m drawn across the universe to someone I haven’t seen for a decade, who I know is probably dead. Love is the one thing we’re capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space…
In the film, scientist Amelia Brand describes how she still feels connected to her lover across the universe and explains how the emotional connection between two people transcends all space and distance. To me, this is also what Super Trouper is about and when the protagonist spots the face of a loved one in the crowd of twenty thousand people, nobody else matters because they’re here and it’s going to make them feel so much better.
(It’s also worth mentioning the science fiction vibes in Super Trouper’s instrumentation – the arpeggiated synths add a strange level of space age heroism around the titular character).
Knowing Me, Knowing You – ABBA
Knowing me, knowing you, it’s the best I can do…
I’m not going to gush as much about this track as much as did for Super Trouper, since it’s fairly straight forward in terms of it’s theme and the music of the former resonates with me a whole lot more. However, there is one specific moment which I think is profoundly eloquent in conveying the emotion it wants to. This is also more impressive with the fact that it’s a purely instrumental break.
Knowing Me, Knowing You is about a break-up, the pain that comes with it and steps both parties have to take to move forward in their lives. Following the chorus, we get a short musical moment which I love for how happy and joyful it seems from the outset, but within the context of the song it’s quite melancholy.
The first time you hear this moment is as soon as the first chorus finishes (1:15), when Björn and Benny temporarily take over. The guitar riff hits all the right points here and the notes are sustained to make a melodramatic yet powerfully emotional statement. The acoustic strumming is still present throughout, which adds a slight folkiness to it whilst the bass shines through with a soft, warm descent on the scale.
To me, this part is very magical, yet against the backdrop of the song being about a sad situation it trusts the listener to come to the conclusion that it’s surrounding a moment of reflection. Lyrically, the song constantly looks back on the good times this couple had.
With the chorus as an ultimatum agreed upon by both parties, this break creates the feeling of what it’s like to walk away from someone you used to love. It’s a goodbye hug in musical form as these people reminisce about how happy they once made each other.
But now the emotions are swelling, they both agreed to do their best and now they have to turn around and walk away.
It’s used sparingly throughout the song, which I think is the correct decision. Oftentimes with musical ‘sweet spots’ you have to make sure not to over indulge. But the significance of this part of the moment is understood and the track fades out after returning to it. Their story isn’t over, but this chapter of it is and they’ll always have the good memories with them.
Mamma Mia! – ABBA
Mamma mia, now I really know
My my, I could never let you go…
Panic! In music, it’s something normally left for film soundtracks. But how do you balance the fun, excitement, stress and mania of falling for someone you shouldn’t…again? Listen to Mamma Mia! and you’ll get a masterclass.
From the start of the song there is what Benny Andersson described as a “tick tock” rhythm with the marimba. Counting down like the timer of a bomb and going from low to high on the scale rapidly. The notes change as quickly as the singer’s mind does. It’s fast, its tense and dangerous, but not too stressful. The fast, single notes from either the piano or marimba keeps you on your toes as though it were an alarm. It’s quite reminiscent of LCD Soundsystem’s All My Friends with the anticipation building higher and higher.
The strings during the chorus are sharp, bouncing in and out and punctuating each line only for as long as they need to whilst the chorus manages to strip everything back to lyrics, piano and marimba; something which never fails to grab your attention when you realise everything else is missing. Then, as the strings fade in and ramps up the tension, the guitar, bass and drums come back in sustained, powerful sweeps.
Near (1:14) the end of the chorus has a short quick descent on the guitar. You can miss it in the mix but I never do. This song is a rollercoaster, and that moment is a short vertical drop.
There’s so many little bits to this song which I love, but my favourite has to be the last chorus, which comes unexpectantly by repeating instantly from the second one (2:30). This repetition is differentiated with the backing vocals and strings holding a note which cuts through and adds another level of suspense to a song with a pretty thrilling narrative already.
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Phew…that was a bit much wasn’t it? That wraps up this ABBA Special. I’m so glad I managed to get all my thoughts on my top three ABBA songs (right now) down for once! Keep an eye on here for more general ramblings about music, film, tv etc…
minutiae+musings 