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This lady’s performance on piano shows how the music is up there with any of the classics. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-8-jGwK8qxBU.html I hope she can one day do “Soldiers” and “The day before you cane”.
This band will live forever in my heart and memories, there are no words to describe their amazing talent, they still bring a lump to my throat and a tear to my eye, and they are my childhood and teen years Nobody could hold a candle to them!
Abba wasn't given the credit they deserved at the time they were on the charts. I grew up during this time and now people are finally seeing how gifted they all are! They made fun of you during the day for listening to them..
I was 12 years old when ABBA sang Waterloo for the first time since then i,m a great fan of the group,and i will Always be a fan,i,m happy i grew up during all the years with hits they made my life so much ,happier and funny.
Slipping Through My Fingers is one of the most beautiful , poignant song's I've ever heard. "Sometimes I wish that I could freeze the picture & save it from the funny tricks of time" It just doesn't get better than that.
I love the last two songs on The Visitors. That ticking clock that closes this song and runs throughout "Like an Angel Passing Through My Room," right through to the end when the song fades out leaving nothing but that ticking clock which just... stops. The final moment of ABBA's last album. They didn't know it would be their last, but, in some way, they did.
Waterloo was about falling in love! The woman tried to fight against falling in love with the man but "lost" by falling in love! And she was quite happy about it.
40+ years later and I still go to their music for something I can't quite explain. Through rough times in the military, divorce, raising kids etc. their music never seems to let me down. Countless dollars cheaper than a shrink, and far more innocent and healthy. Show me another group, or form of music that has touched so many people in so many ways!
I think Benny was the love of Frida's life. He was the one who gave this motherless and fatherless insecure girl a true sense of direction: father, brother, mentor. Though she would remarry, losing him was a traumatic heartbreak.
William Overly the boys wrote the music. Bjorn wrote the lyrics. “Winner Takes it All” is a masterpiece of raw emotion set to music. Agnetha (his recently ex wife) performance is stunning but heartbreaking all the same. I believe he was devastated by their break up.
About ABBA's dark side. In the video review you should have mentioned the song "The day before you came". A dark, very melancholic piece of art which probably is one of their masterpieces. Unfortunately it is not very popular because it kills a good mood in an instant. It was the very last recording that ABBA took in the studio, ever... :(
@Marvin Morawski It is we - listeners - who choose the meaning of the song according our mindset and emotional signature. So in this case truth can be as many as we are. For me the repetition of "And still on top of this I'm pretty sure it must have rained The day before you came" - makes allusion to Zeus and Danae - Danae was a prisoner (as a singer is a prisioner of mundane) and Zeus came to her in a form of rain. And it changed everything. Therefore, Zeus is a symbol of hope that this dull, framed and quiet life will change.
Melancholy is very much part of the Swedish culture so it's hardly surprising that the lyrics reflect this. Benny said in an interview that apart from "dum dum diddle" they had never written a happy song.
It's a lovely video essay, but I think it is mis-titled. I've been waiting for some "dark" revelation, but there isn't any. It's just life. Very nicely done though.
Thanks! The reason why it's titled like that is because people usually associate ABBA with happy pop music. Seeing how Abba experimented with a whole range of human emotions only goes to show their brilliance.
ABBA happy uplifting melody's with an underbelly of grief and sadness, brought to life by the greatest duet of any group past or present ,Anna Freid and Agnetha Falskog.
Well done, especially for highlighting the many themes on The Visitors. You could have included Soldiers in the war theme. And I Let the music Speak is a standout in its own right.
Very well put together interpretation. Their songs go thru all the stages of a relationship from giddy dating to painful breakups. Even as early as their second album in "Hey hey Helen" they were dealing with a breakup and life on your own. I'm glad you previewed "The Visitors" which is one of their most underrated songs, and in your war theme you left out "Soldiers" which is another overlooked song. People remember their bouncy hits but there is such strong diversity in their body of work. There are so many layers to what they were doing which is still being discovered.
Thank you. This comment means a lot. I could have covered more songs but I wanted to keep the video as short as possible. So I went with the highlights. Also, leaving stuff out is a good way to encourage people to think and broaden on the ideas themselves.
Abba the musical had so much potential and Mamma Mia is a bit of a let down. You could create completely different storylines following the path of a relationship. As well their unreleased tracks such as 'Just Like That' which would have fit so well in Mamma Mia
Without reading everything, I thought it was a great post. ABBA had one hell of run. They produced some very popular and lovely music. Nothing lasts forever and ABBA was no exception. Both couples divorcing would split any successful group. I grew up listening to ABBA and I still enjoy their music. Thank you for your post.
Absolutely brilliant video -- thank you for this. But Jeez... there is no way Waterloo is about domestic violence. That was a stretch. Thanks for giving The Visitors its due, that album is pure genius.
Nothing more precious on earth than old friends who have fought and made up and entered in an agreement to bond deeply and with unconditional respect and consideration! The blend of Frida and Agnethe ‘s voices is just the glue and cement for the lovely words enshrined in our listening hearts!
I was a fan in the 70's, less so in the 80's as ABBAs popularity waned. But the recent flurry of activity around their new album rekindled my interest, so I looked deeper. I was blown away by the incredible collection of wonderful songs that I'd never heard before. I didn't even know the 'visitors' album existed. Publicity around ABBA died off pretty fast in the late 70's in my country and there was no internet back then. The last album I bought was Arrival and interest in ABBA fell off after Dancing Queen dropped out of the charts. All we knew is what the media told us and that wasn't much.
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Thank you for your analysis. I love reading about the background to their music, the themes and the hidden depths and meaning to ABBA songs. This analysis could go even deeper with more content I’m sure. Great work!
One of the producers of the “Mama Mia “ films said...ABBA music is charismatic with an indefinable depth!!! That is not a cop out statement. It means the music reaches the innermost depths of human emotions, and we do not have enough known words in our language to adequately describe what is going on with them If, however, you filter the myriad collection of fans comments, you will be able to ascertain to a degree some of the reasons for the high dimension and depth of each and every song from this wonder group of Swedish Gold!!
The second part of my comment: The so called “progressives” in 70s Sweden despised ABBA’s perfect marketable pop music that they refused to play their songs on the radio. Of course time has proven ABBA music’s: timeless. This was one of the best things I have seen about the Greatest Pop Group of All Time on RU-vid. THANK YOU FOR POSTING IT!
The best and my most favorite group 'ABBA'is like a'Fairy Tale group' Why they do n't live happily ever after? Why they are falling apart! (such a beautiful couples they were)!
I’m giving away my age here. I have always loved this group from the moment my brother introduced me to this group. I remember hearing their first song...back in the seventies and fell in love with their vocal...the fun power in their songs. My iTunes is always set in group ...alphabetical order, on purpose so I can hear them first...all the time. ☺️ I will forever love and consider this group one of my Most favorites ...of all time.😘👍 ....yes, move over the Beatles and Elvis.....(I know. I’m such a dork) these two come in a close second and third all the rest, for me, can fall behind them too. ✌️😎
Most songwriters, singers, groups are guided by their feelings, so when a divorce or fight occurs, it affects the music or performance. It's not unusual for the music to change or get darker, more reflective, when lives get torn or ripped apart.
YESSS!!! I love the way their accents would subtly come through at times. In the same song (Waterloo) there is a line “I feel like I win when I lose” - I love how “lose” sounds.more like “loose”. On “Name of the Game” to me the word “impossible” in the line “I was an impossible.case” to me sounds more like “Empossible”. I never get tired of listening to ABBA.
ABBA have so many soul stirring songs! To me The Visitors being their last album when they were breaking up is their best and shows the tension overspilling into the music much like with the Beatles during their last album with Abbey Road in 1969 which also showcases among their best songs as well! Ultimately it's very sad that anyone has to breakup and people have a falling out but thankfully there's the music that is the channel to project our feelings and emotions!
Yep. But not many people appreciate it. Especially Abba whom people mostly think made jovial pop music. Also, it also comes down to how the band poured their own experience in to the songs.
And there are even more songs like these. ABBA's music got more and more mature, mystical and melancholic towards the end. "Me and I" and "Soldiers" are other great examples for it with catchy melodies but kind of sad and melancholic lyrics questioning the edges between reality and fiction.
I love the ABBA pop group forever !!! Immortal and very beautiful pop music with angels voices , genius and pure great talent all the ABBA members !!! Very tall quality and World level of pop group and music !!!
the visitors (the song not the album) is one of my favorites of theirs because the catchy beat disguises the fact that the lyrics are about being hunted in your own home, knowing the end is coming for you and resigning yourself to your fate but pleading for help anyway ("i have been waiting for these visitors, help me"), and is generally just a terrifying experience overall. when i finally looked up the lyrics i was literally horrified. home invasion/being seditionists hunted by the government wasnt a subject matter i was expecting from abba
Often the best music is that which conveys a spirit of sadness and mourning. Mozart was a musical genius known for many works I would characterize as light and pleasant, yet possibly his most popular work, his Requiem in D Minor, is a work about death, a work he literally died composing. As for how this relates to ABBA, my favorite song from ABBA's discography is "The Winner Takes It All", a song that conveys much of the heartache of Bjorn's and Agnetha's recent divorce.
The hit parade!!! Ahhh those were the days! The day before you came. .dum dum diddle. ..it's not just about fluff. ..brilliant now and then...slipping through my fingers..heard that the day my mum died...
I'm A Marionette is a big omission, it talks about how the music industry controls people in a way that they cannot escape, Elaine seems to be a story of street harassment and rape, it's very dark, Mamma Mia is the same Waterloo case, it talks about a woman constantly forgiving her boyfriend who apparently cheats on her. My Love My Life talks about a devastating love breakup, something that many people don't know because they get carried away by Mamma Mia's version of maternal love. Dance (While The Music Still Goes On) is very, very sad. If It Wasn't For The Nights also seems very cheerful but it has a secret meaning, it tells of a woman who is overwhelmed and probably suffering from depression. And finally, Super Trouper, although it seems very happy, talks about a woman who is fed up with fame and only stands for one thing, her boyfriend. The song is joyful, although it talks about a woman who is on the verge of collapse.
Brilliant examples. I unfortunately had to cut short the video for it was getting too long. But I guess I should have at least included I'm a Marionette!! Thanks for the comment and the in depth insight.
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I appreciate your analysis, even if I don't fully agree with it. The main reason I'm disagreeing is that the lyrics to most of ABBA's biggest songs were written by Stig Anderson, not Benny/Bjorn, including many of the songs you chose to analyze here. In fact one of the songs you analyze was written by Neil Sedaka with Phil Cody. However Neil based it on the Swedish lyrics which were quite similar in tone to Neil's version. lyricstranslate.com/en/ring-ring-original-swedish-version-ring-ring.html
Björn and benny created the music together. Björn mostly contributed with the lyrics and Benny the music. Stig Andersson was Abba´s manager and wrote a few songs in the beginning of Abba´s career.
After listening to your account of ABBA music I'd like to make my own comment. The genius of Bjorn's lyricism should be mentioned. His talent is very apparent in all of the ABBA music. Bennys musicality is awesome. I marvel at his ability no matter the instrument. I don't think picking apart the lyrics is an area to dwell on. Just consider the whole and their last quality. Fads and trends don't last very long. ABBA has given their best for over 50 years. Name another pop group that you can say that about. I'll wait...
I always viewed waterloo as about fighting to keep a relationship and losing the relationship. Did benny and Bjorne ever explain the meaning of the lyrics?
It took people the entire decade they were around to figure that ABBA "could be dark musically" and even when they made it so blatant (a full album of it in '81) and 1982 should that ever be completed-which it technically is if you add the CHESS singles to it, plus all of the Gemini album in 1985 that is pretty much an ABBA album, people only reacted with askance at the best! Idiots. But there were dark songs before, even 'Dancing Queen' has a questionably dodgy underlying subtext, but no, they miss that of course because of the wonderful pop spirit of the song and the beautiful vocals, harmonies and catchy as hell music! D'oh!
If you read the english translation of some of swedish abba song you might get a another wiev or version of them . Fernando and SOS are two.Disillusion a another-I guess there are more where the lyrics has changed to fit the music or a english audience-the same might be the case with the spanish songs.
There is not dark side of ABBA. Thanks GOD that allow us to enjoy the ABBA music. ABBA was and is so great that still after so many years we still listening to ABBA music.
You are misinterpretating my point. Dark side doesn't mean bad music. It means mature and complex themes. To deny Abba doesn't have a Dark side is to deny they are not versatile.
Arttective, I play the available L. Ps once a while now being lockout. But always starts with "When I kissed"... don't know why. I'm now 67, starting love with them from 1976.
I don't think this should be titled "The Dark Side Of ABBA" maybe it should be "my dark interpretation of ABBA's lyrics" as we all have different ideas of what the lyrics mean and you must take into account the melody,the girls emotive singing and also your own feelings and experiences at the time of listening to the song!
