An announcement made the other day has thrilled music lovers – a new album of ABBA, ‘Voyage’, will be released on 5 November. To our delight, two songs from the album have been pre-released and have hit the music world by a storm. The songs are ‘I Still Have Faith In You’ and ‘Don’t Shut Me Down’, classic ABBA titles indicative of their emotional appeal. Soon after the announcement, on just one music channel, YouTube, the former song had over 12 million views. And immediately on joining Tik-Tok last week, they had 5 million followers. Shows the cross-generational appeal of ABBA even after 40 years of their break-up in 1982.
What is so fascinating about ABBA’s music? I recall this question was asked of an old man in the 1977 film, ‘ABBA The Movie’ and his reply was something like this, “Well, they are different, fresh, clean”. That is the summary of a number of factors including the enchanting singing of the beautiful singers Agnetha Faltskog and Anni-Frid ‘Frida’ Lyngstad (A..A), the lush orchestration led by Benny Andersson on the keyboard and Bjorn Ulvaeus (ABBA) on the guitar, and the songwriting of Benny and Bjorn with lyrics simple and easy to sing along, sad yet spurring hope and happiness with feelgood vibes and a feeling of falling in love.
For me, the magic of ABBA is really in their highly emotional lyrics that tug incessantly at the heartstrings. The lyrics are true to life as a result of their own life experiences of breakups and separations and also, some turbulence in childhood, which gives a depth to the songs hinting at deep sadness.
Let’s look at the lyrics and start with what is one of the greatest break-up songs ever, ‘One Of Us’, appropriately written when both the couples had separated:
‘One of us is crying, one of us is lying in a lonely bed…
One of us is lonely, one of us is only waiting for a call,
Wishing she had never left at all’.
Another breakup song is ‘Knowing Me Knowing You’:
‘Memories, good days, bad days, they’ll be with me always,
Knowing me knowing you, there’s nothing we can do’.
‘The Winner Takes All’ is a sad song reeking of fatalism in which the singer has been left for someone else but sadly has to accept it:
‘Nothing more to say, no more ace to play,
So the winner takes it all, and the loser has to fall’.
But things really come to a head causing the singer to resort to the international distress signal, ‘S.O.S.:
‘Where are those happy days, they seem so hard to find,
I tried to reach for you but you have closed your mind,
The love you gave me, nothing else can save me, S.O.S.,
When you are gone, how can I even try to go on’.
Hoping for the tide to turn on ‘a dark and dreary night’ leads to ‘Ring, Ring, Ring’:
‘Staring at the phone on the wall,
Ring, ring, why don’t you give me a call,
Ring, ring, the happiest sound of them all’.
Maybe a call came to give a chance to plead ‘Lay All Your Love On Me’:
‘I wasn’t jealous before we met,
Now every woman I see is a potential threat,
Don’t go wasting your emotion,
Lay all your love on me,
Don’t go sharing your devotion.
Lay all your love on me’.
One step further is the invitation to ‘Take A Chance On Me’:
‘If you change your mind,
I’m the first in line,
Honey I’m still free,
Take a chance on me’.
And so came what many think is the perfect falling in love song, ‘The Name Of The Game’:
‘Your smile and the sound of your voice,
Got a feeling, you gave me no choice, but it means a lot,
What’s the name of the game?
Does it mean anything to you?
But I think I can see in your face that it means a lot’.
Time off from self to offer a shoulder to cry on and someone to rely on to ‘Chiquitita’ which is Spanish for ‘little one’. The latter has suffered heartaches and scars so her spirits are sought to be raised with:
‘ You’ll be dancing once again and the pain will end,
You will have no time for grieving….
Try once more as you did before,
Sing a new song, Chiquitita’.
From heartaches and love to a song full of hope and resolve, ‘I Have A Dream’. Some think the song has a deeper meaning hinting to a life beyond the present one but I am content to think it is all about courage and optimism to overcome strife and tribulations in this very life:
‘I have a dream, a song to sing,
To help me cope, with anything,
If you see the wonder, of a fairy tale,
You can take the future, even if you fail….
I have a dream, a fantasy,
To help me through, reality,
And my destination, makes it worth the while,
Pushin’ through the darkness, still another mile,
I believe in angels, something good in everything I see,
I believe in angels, when I know the time is right for me,
I’ll cross the stream,
I have a dream’.
The lyrics of the two new songs seem intently personal and reflect the desire of the two couples and the group for a reunion and a fresh start. In ‘Don’t Shut Me Down’, the singer pleads to be accepted as she has changed:
‘And now you see another me, I’ve been reloaded….
I’m like a dream within a dream that’s been decoded….
I’m not the one you knew, I’m now and then combined….
I’m not the same this time around,
I’m fired up, don’t shut me down.’
Having gone through the ups and downs of life and the breakup, the realization of the preciousness of the relationship is the theme of the powerful song ‘I Still Have Faith In You’:
‘I still have faith in you,
It stands above the crazy things we did,
There was a union of heart and mind,
The likes of which are rare and oh-so hard to find,
It all comes down to love…
We do have it in us, new spirit has arrived,
The joy and the sorrow, we have a story
And it survived.’
Finally, as they themselves often do, I end with ‘Thank You For The Music’:
‘So I say thank you for the music, the songs I’m singing,
Thanks for all the joy they are bringing,
….Thank you for the music, for giving it to me’.
ABBA’s four are in their 70s now. But the heartening fact is they have reunited. One hopes they will continue to stay together and keep tugging at our heartstrings for many more years before they eventually ‘cross the stream’.
