"After interviewing the four members for an article in 2013 - at which time the band had not been interviewed for over thirty years - Jan Gradvall was granted unique access to them for the next decade."
The Jan Gradvall article in 2013 was published on Dagens Industri (DI weekend June of 2023), The article is very interesting and shows what you can expect from Jan Gradvall book. The book was already published in Scandinavian with the title "Vemod undercover – boken om Abba" in October of last year, and I read it already , it is a good book, but it is not really a biography, but makes a good analysis of the ABBA music, the famous melancholic side, with insights from the members and people around the band, and also has a deep look on how badly ABBA was treated in Sweden, mainly by the Press. One odd thing , the book has no pictures, Jan explained in an interview (rough translation from a Finish article) "I wrote this book based on notes that I made in the last 10 years and I'm not good with dates in my recolletion, then I propose to the editor in having a text book only, no pictures".
Abba – a story of adversity
FROM THE ARCHIVE (15 of June, 2013). Di Weekend has gone in-depth with one of the world's biggest pop bands. In personal interviews, the four Abba members answer questions they have never been asked before. In a unique reportage, Jan Gradvall revises the story of Abba.
Published: 21 January 2016, 09:08
Jan Gradvall
Photo: TT
COUPLE IN POP. Agnetha Fältskog and Björn Ulvaeus met in the 1960s when Agnetha toured the folk parks and Björn played with the Hootennany Singers.Photo: LarsÅke Thuresson
MUSIC ELITE. Ted Gärdestad in the studio work on his first album. The picture was taken on February 14, 1972 - four days before his 16th birthday. In the foreground is Benny Andersson, next to Ted is Björn Ulvaeus and in the background is sound engineer Michael B Tretow.Photo: LarsÅke Thuresson
EARLY YEARS. Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus in Stikkan Andersson's writer's den. The two started writing music together when they met in the 1960s. To this day, they are friends and work closely together on Skeppsholmen in Stockholm.Photo: LarsÅke Thuresson
AT THE WING. Benny Andersson during a recording in the classic Atlantis studio on Karlbergsvägen in Stockholm. The picture comes from the photographer Larsåke Thuresson's photo archive.Photo: LarsÅke Thuresson
Anni-Frid Reuss.Photo: Jonas Ekströmer
Benny Andersson.Photo: Jesper Frisk
Björn Ulvaeus.Photo: Jesper Frisk
May 6, 2013, Stockholm in spring is in the focus of the world's media. And it's not a princess wedding they're covering. Ask an Australian, Japanese, or British who are Sweden's kings, queens, princes or princesses - of pop.
When the Abba Museum opens its doors, everyone hopes for a symbolic reunion. But only three of the Abbas will attend the inauguration.
Photo: TT
Anni-Frid, Björn and Benny are there, but Agnetha is in London to launch her first solo album in 26 years.
It is perhaps symptomatic of a band that has never officially disbanded, but which refuses to reunite.
"It's sad that she's not here. I miss her very much tonight and I think she would have liked to be here," says Anni-Frid Reuss, former Lyngstad, to the assembled media gathering.
In connection with the inauguration, newspapers, radio and television are filled with Abba reports. They all retell the same success story. Summary: After the group won the Eurovision song contest with Waterloo on April 6, 1974, Abba took over the world.
It's just that that story is not true. If you go deep into Abbas's past - study the lists, rummage through archives, talk to all four members - you will not find a success story but a story of adversity.
What has shaped and shaped Abba are setbacks, both on a personal level and career-wise. The 1980s were an icy decade for Abba. The group's last two singles flopped, the world had moved on to other music. From 1982 to 1992, Abba songs were rarely heard on the radio. The group's albums were listed as expired and disappeared from stores.
"We were completely set on it all being over," says BENNY ANDERSSON.
"We thought that royalties would continue to come in during 1983, possibly that it would last until 1984, but longer than that? Never. There are even papers on (decisions that were made) that we were convinced of it."
"During the 1980s, we were off the radar," agrees BJÖRN ULVAEUS.
"The general perception at the time was that Abba was really uncool. If you, like me, have a predisposition to low self-confidence, then it was hard not to think: 'Well, that's it, now it's over.'"
The story of what happened next, the turnaround in 1992-1994 when the seeds of the group's revival were sown, is still unwritten. A victory that was bigger and more unexpected than Waterloo.
Even the history of Abba's music is largely unwritten. How exactly are Abba's songs constructed? What is the secret of the group's music?
"No one has asked this before," says Benny Andersson as he sits down at the grand piano and shows.
On his desk he has a framed photograph of "the girls", AGNETHA FÄLTSKOG and ANNI-FRID LYNGSTAD, whose voices he still has in the back of his mind when he writes.
MY OWN RELATIONSHIP with Abba goes back a long way. Waterloo was the first LP I bought with my own money. The magazine Sonic recently did a special issue about the 100 best Swedish albums of all time, of which only one was an Abba album. On my own top five ballot, at least four would be in place: Arrival (1976), Voulez-vous (1978), Super Trouper (1980) and The Visitors (1981).
When I recently received an award, I was asked who had meant the most to my writing. My answer was: "Abba. For their way of being both private and serious and complex, but at the same time never at the expense of the immediate address. Your job is to make it look easy. To do the work for the listener/reader, to hide the hard work behind."
Abba split never officially traded. The publication just dried up. In connection with the release of Under attack, the group's last single, at the end of 1982, a double compilation album was also made with the optimistic title The Singles: The first ten years.
But there were no "The next ten years". There was a break that became longer and longer and longer. And that has been going on until now, when the members are symbolically reunited by all four signing this cover of Di Weekend - yes, all the signatures are fresh - and each agreeing to an interview.
***
We start at a hotel in London. England is the country where Abba is bigger than anywhere else in the world, possibly in competition with Australia.
There are various signs that you are staying at a good hotel. One is that when Manchester United checks out, Star Trek checks in.
Two years after opening, the Corinthia hotel, near Trafalgar Square, has become one of London's hottest. Manchester United's squad has just packed and left the lobby when the stars of the new Star Trek movie arrive in limousines. It turns out to be press days for Star Trek into darkness. Outside the hotel, fans wait patiently for the actors who play Captain Kirk and Spock to sign their worn posters and old VHS cassettes. Spock looks as if he would rather be in another galaxy, but stays for a while and signs everything that is stretched out.
What none of the autograph collectors outside the entrance know is that there are more valuable signatures to collect inside the hotel restaurant.
Across from us sits JEREMY PIVEN, known from the TV series Mr Selfridge and as the unscrupulous Hollywood agent Ari Gold in Entourage. Jeremy Piven wraps around a brunette who could be, we're guessing, "someone from some vampire movie."
But the hotel guest manager doesn't care much about that table. Instead, he has his attention focused on our table, where there is a celebrity of higher dignity.
"I know it's considered a shame to do this, but I like it best when it's freezing cold," says Agnetha Fältskog, looking to the sides and then spooning a couple of ice cubes into her wine glass with chablis.
For ten days in May, Agnetha Fältskog stays at Hotel Corinthia in London. She has checked in under a pseudonym. Every other day she meets the world's press to talk about her new solo album A. Every other day she takes time off to keep up with her schedule, exercising and resting at the hotel's spa or going for short walks around the West End and Soho.
"
Every time we hear an obscure song on the car radio or in a restaurant, it's Agnetha who pinpoints exactly what it is," says PETER NORDAHL, one of her two producers on the new album.
THE LONDON TRIP is Agnetha Fältskog's first stay abroad and flight in decades. A journalist from one of Germany's largest daily newspapers is informed that his interview time has been postponed in the tight schedule. He replies, "Don't worry. I can wait, I've been waiting for this for 30 years." There is something electric about Agnetha Fältskog's presence in London; Everyone who recognizes her reacts in the same way and stops in her step. Decades of absence from the spotlight and media have made it feel less surprising to run into someone from Star Trek - well, another galaxy, whatever - than to see "the blonde one from Abba" alive.
When you sit next to Agnetha Fältskog for a few hours, eat dinner, drink chablis and talk about music, there is nothing GRETA GARBO-like about her behavior. She is social, open ("Now I'm going to tell you something I've never told you before") and curious about everything around her.
Also at the table is LOLO MURRAY, who is at Agnetha's side andthroughout your stay in London. Lolo Murray works as a personal advisor to some of Sweden's biggest artists in everything that has to do with appearance: hair, makeup, clothes. She has worked with Agnetha Fältskog, all albums and performances, since 1980.
"It started with me styling a job with Agnetha and Frida for Clic magazine," says Lolo Murray.
"Then I got an offer to join Abba's tour to Japan at short notice. During one of the concerts' quick changes of clothes, I accidentally put Agnetha's skirt upside down... Now I'll be fired, I thought. But you (holding your arm around Agnetha) let me stay. It was incredibly fun on that tour."
Agnetha Fältskog and Lolo Murray draw memories from Abba tours.
"Several people who interviewed me here have asked questions about rivalry between me and Frida," says Agnetha.
Photo: TT
"But there was no such thing. On the contrary, we helped and supported each other all the time, especially on the tours. If one of us had a cold, the other could step in and pull a larger load in terms of voice. We always covered for each other."
It's been a long day in London. It started in the morning when Agnetha Fältskog was interviewed in the Abbey Road studio by The Today Show, America's largest and most prestigious morning TV program, which had flown over for her.
"I recognize myself, I've been here before," says Agnetha Fältskog as she steps through the doors of the Beatles' legendary recording studio in big black sunglasses.
"PAUL MCCARTNEY invited us in the 1970s. We were here to visit and look around."
The Abbey Road studio has been chosen as the location for the TV interview because The Today Show wanted a more colourful setting than a hotel. The connection to the Beatles is also not far-fetched. Pop history, it is in that company that Abba belongs. In its June issue, Q, perhaps England's most prestigious music magazine, Q, calls Abba "the greatest pure pop band in musical history".
The reporter from The Today Show, hired from England, is so excited to interview Agnetha Fältskog that he talks more than she does. Some of the questions are rather enumerations of facts than real questions, facts that underline that Abba are royalty in England.
"How did it feel that after their wedding at the reception, KATE and WILLIAM only played Abba songs?"
"How does it feel that Queen Elizabeth loves Dancing Queen and has quoted the text?"
Agnetha Fältskog did not know about any of this, but answers as best she can. When she is interviewed in English, she thinks a little extra, looks for the right words, something that makes her appear more reserved than she really is. The Garbo myth remains intact.
What The Today Show and other foreign media have less control over is that Agnetha Fältskog is not only a glamorous front figure, she was and is also deeply involved in everything that has to do with music. She is a driven pianist and songwriter. A few weeks ago, she received the composers' association Skap's prize in memory of KAI GULLMAR. Kai Gullmar was Sweden's first female popular music composer.
On her solo albums in the 1960s and 1970s, Agnetha Fältskog wrote most of the songs herself. Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson also encouraged her to continue writing to Abba, but "there was no time left for that".
The new solo album A, which she made together with JÖRGEN ELOFSSON and Peter Nordahl, is her best in decades and is partly made as a continuation of her old solo album from the time before Abba.
What is recognizable from Abba is the way she captures the listener's attention through the way she sings. OLA HÅKANSSON has described her voice as "a laser voice", it goes right through everything.
But it was not a matter of course that it would remain today. "The voice is a muscle", as Jörgen Elofsson says. For the new album, Agnetha Fältskog took singing lessons and practiced for months.
At the same time, her way of singing is about much more than technique. Unlike other great singers, she never shines with her technique at the expense of the content of the lyrics. Her solo songs and songs are like dramas, which is one explanation for their craving and durability.
I'm going to tell you something I haven't told you before. When I did the vocals for 'Thank you for the music', I lay down in the studio. It was Abba, the world was waiting for a new album.
The most personal song on the new album, I keep them on the floor beside my bed, is based on her own idea and was then finished with the help of Jörgen Elofsson.
I turn on the tape recorder when we sit in her hotel room.
The lyrics to I keep them on the floor beside my bed are about someone who keeps memory photographs by the bed. Do you do that yourself?
"Yes, I have a small box of mementos in the bedroom. It is perhaps more common among women than among men. In the box I have pictures of people that I love and loved, children, grandchildren, dogs. I wanted to write a song about that way of collecting and preserving memories. In the end, it was still a love song between a man and a woman, but that was the feeling I started from and wanted to bring out."
How often do you take out the box?
"Often."
Those who have worked with you highlight that in addition to your voice, you also have a unique ability to bring texts to life, to shape them.
"It's always difficult to say what you're good at. I know that I can sing, that I can write. But what I'm really good at is exactly that: understanding what the text is about. I always ask questions about the background of the text, go into it, become the text."
A bit like an actor works?
"Yes. I go into the bubble when I sing. During the take, there's nothing else."
Have you always sung like that, like a storyteller?
"More or less. I think I became a better singer the more life experience I got. You get as much as you want to share. And my way of sharing is the song. I put my feelings there."
Do you get an outlet for more emotions in the song than you can talk about?
"I don't have a hard time talking about personal things. But, maybe that's true, so it can be."
On which instrument did you write the song?
"Piano. That's how I've always written. I wish I had also familiarized myself with synths and drum machines and such, it probably would have meant that I had more songs written."
How often do you sit down at the piano?
"Unfortunately, far too rarely these days. People wonder what I've done during all the years I haven't been seen in the media, but I've been busy. I have a farm with horses to take care of and I have grandchildren. When I sit down at the piano today, it's usually to teach the grandchildren how to play, to teach them what the notes are called. They're very musical, funny enough, but honestly more interested in horses than playing."
Do you remember your first piano?
"Yes, God, yes. One of the first things I did was to write my own song. I sat there with one finger and wrote a song called Two small trolls. I was five years old then, but that piano wasn't mine. We didn't have a piano at home."
How did you do that?
"I loved playing the piano. So for three years, I went over to our neighbors, who were good friends, every day and played their piano. When I was about eight, I finally got my own - pianos were expensive. I learned to play properly when I was nine or ten. Then I went to school with different piano teachers. I became good. When I was At 15 my last teacher said, 'Now I have nothing more to teach.' Then I sat at the front of the church and played the harpsichord, a fugue by BACH."
"Then I left classical music and started doing revues with two girlfriends in Jönköping. My father was a bit of a revue king, which inspired us. We did everything possible: wrote lyrics, sang, put on ballet. Then I started singing with different dance orchestras."
THE FOUR ABBA MEMBERS were all very young when they started to invest in music seriously. Journalist MALCOLM GLADWELL theorizes that anyone who becomes really good at something, whether it's science, business, or art, has put in at least 10,000 hours to improve.
The Abba members had all 10,000 hours behind them even before they started the group.
Björn Ulvaeus was 16 years old when he formed West Bay Singers, the model for the Hootenanny Singers, in Västervik, 18 years old when he got a record contract with STIKKAN ANDERSON. Benny Andersson played piano for audiences when he was 13-14 years old and was 18 years old when he became a member of Hep Stars. Anni-Frid Lyngstad was 13 years old when she started singing with various dance orchestras. Agnetha Fältskog was 15. When she was 17 years old, she got her first number one in Sweden.
The routine that existed in Abba when the breakthrough came is unprecedented in pop history.
Do you save the discs you have made?
"No, I don't know about it. I donated a lot now to the Abba Museum. Some lps and cds I still have, but they are in boxes. I very rarely listen to what I've recorded myself. An exception is The winner takes it all. I listen to it when I have low self-confidence. There I can praise myself, 'you did well'. But there are so many Abba songs that I love even if I don't listen to them that often. Two other personal favorites, which are not often played, are If it wasn't for the night and Our last summer."
I understand that you and Frida were very involved in the arrangements. How did you work?
"We lived with the songs, from the time they were written to the recordings were made, we heard them emerge. The guys wrote and produced, but in the studio everyone gave their opinions. I had a lot of ideas about different details in the song. Little gimmick stuff, choruses, breathing that can be heard, details you might not hear the first time you listen."
Were there discussions about which songs you and Frida should sing solo on?
"No, it was already thought out when they were written, depending on the key."
How to be a good singer?
"One answer is that you have it within you, but it's also about technology. It was interesting now that I started singing again after such a long break. I took too much at first, got a sore throat. It's important to use your abdominal muscles, use the extra strength. It is only when you feel confident in the technique that you can express a lot. I like to be close to the mic. I like to sit down when I sing in the studio."
Sitting down? Also on the Abba songs? It's really interesting, why?
"I think the explanation to begin with was as simple as the fact that we spent so much time in the studio. I sat down because I couldn't stand anymore. When Frida and I sang together, we always stood up, opposite each other, and made eye contact. But when I sang alone, I started to sit down and have continued to do so."
Does sitting affect how you sing?
"Yes. I sit very close to the mic so as not to collapse. It allows me to hold back when needed in the text. It reinforces the feeling that I'm not just singing, but telling the lyrics."
"I'm going to tell you something I haven't told you before. When I did the vocal overlay for Thank you for the music, I lay down in the studio. We had tried different versions but didn't get it right. There is a recording where I sing it as DORIS DAY. When we re-recorded, I was pregnant with CHRISTIAN (Agnetha's and Björn's second child) and was about to give birth prematurely. I was told by the doctor to just lie down and take it easy. But it was Abba, the world was waiting for a new album. We solved it by carrying a kind of recliner into the studio. So I sang lying in my chair, that's the take that's on the album."
BY AN UNFORTUNATE COINCIDENCE, Agnetha Fältskog's ten days in London coincide with the opening of the Abba Museum in Stockholm. That she would go to London and meet the world's press was written into a contract and could not be changed. It was part of the agreement that the rest of the world, especially the United States and England, would step in and market her new album 100 percent.
On the opening night of the Abba Museum, Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson did not have to travel very far; it was just a matter of getting on the Djurgården ferry from Skeppsholmen which takes two minutes. Benny Andersson has his studio there, Björn Ulvaeus is often there for meetings.
Anni-Frid Lyngstad had to go much further.
She flew to Stockholm from Switzerland, where she has lived for a long time.
One reason why Abba both formed and stopped performing as a band is the two marriages in the group. Agnetha and Björn married in 1971, had two children and divorced in 1979. Frida and Benny met in the early 1970s, married in 1978 and divorced in 1981. They had no children together, but they both had children from previous marriages with them.
Abba also made music out of their divorces. The winner takes it all is based on the divorce between Agnetha and Björn, When all is said and done is Frida's and Benny's counterpart. Abba's eighth and final album, The Visitors from 1981, is marked by separations.
'The Visitors' is my favorite album. The quality of the songs there, the melodies and the lyrics that Björn and Benny wrote... The level right through is fantastic.
After the divorce, Frida met RUZZO REUSS, a German prince and landscape architect in the 1980s. When they married in 1992, she was given the title Princess Anni-Frid Reuss, Countess of Plauen. Seven years after the wedding, Ruzzo Reuss passed away from cancer.
"It's now 13 years since my husband passed away, but I still live in Switzerland, I like it there," says Anni-Frid Reuss.
She lives in the Swiss Alpine village of Zermatt, overlooking the Matterhorn. She also has a home in Mallorca, where she will go after the opening of the Abba Museum. Her most recent solo album, Djupa andetag, was released in 1996. Since then, she has not made an album and has no plans to do so.
"I really admire Agnetha, think it's fantastic that she has made a new album," says Anni-Frid Reuss.
"But I don't have that motivation in my life right now. I still have the voice, I feel that, but to make an album ... It requires so much more."
She showed that she still has her voice when she guest sang on the album that ANDREAS KLEERUP produced for JOJJE WADENIUS three years ago. On the album, Anni-Frid Reuss performs a devastating version of CAT STEVENS' Morning has broken, a song played at her husband's funeral. (The year before her husband's death, her daughter died in a car accident.)
How long have you been singing?
"As long as I can remember. I sang non-stop when I was a child. Wherever I was, I sang. I sang at home, I sang at school. I became aware that I could sing for real when I was ten years old when I entered a talent competition. And won. I sang a song by MONICA ZETTERLUND that was actually far too difficult for me, but I somehow managed it."
Photo: TT
THE ABBA MUSEUM IS FULL of gadgets that evoke emotional memories both in the visitors and in the group members themselves. For Anni-Frid, the most personal is something that is not really part of the exhibition itself. In the small cinema at the bottom of the museum, the chairs come from her old childhood cinema in Torshälla.
"Film characterized my upbringing. I went there as often as I could afford. I remember Jailhouse rock with ELVIS. That's probably where I got my love for deep soul voices."
Anni-Frid Synni Lyngstad was born in Norway in November 1945. Her father was a soldier from the German occupying forces. Because of how "German children" were received in Norway after the war, Anni-Frid had to move in with her grandmother in Torshälla, where she grew up.
LOU REED's expression "growing up in public" is something she can relate to. At the age of 13, she got her first professional job as a singer with a dance orchestra. At 17, she had children and married.
Anni-Frid was the foremost stage artist in Abba, the one who most clearly showed that she liked to be on stage. One of Abba's hallmarks is the contrast between Agnetha's light pop voice and Frida's darker soul voice. The depth she reaches in songs like The King Has Lost His Crown evokes shivers.
"I love soul. I've listened to soul and R&B all my life."
What is it about soul that you like so much?
"That it goes straight to the heart. That it is a deep language. There is a sounding board in soul, a way to process all kinds of emotions. Body and soul merge and become one in soul music. I especially love STEVIE WONDER's way of singing. I can listen to his recordings as much as I want."
Is it a dream to someday sing with Stevie Wonder?
"I actually have! When a friend had his birthday (EF billionaire BERTIL HULT), me and Stevie Wonder and ELTON JOHN sang Happy birthday together at his birthday party. That was big for me."
How to be a good singer?
"Above all, it's about a sense of rhythm and timing, knowing when to pull or hold back."
Can you express personal experiences when you sing other people's lyrics?
"Definitely. When I sing, I express everything I have experienced in life. I have everything I have with me in the studio. My voice is the result of my collective experiences."
What is your favorite album by Abba?
"The visitors. The quality of the songs there, the melodies and the lyrics that Björn and Benny wrote... The level right through is fantastic. And everything we went through in the meantime is reflected in the music, in a good way."
Where does the melancholy in Abba's songs come from?
"Benny and his grandfather's accordion. I remember when we were a couple and walked around Mjölkö where he spent his summers as a child. He pointed out places, told and explained. Then I realized how much of Abba came from the memories and the folk music he grew up with."
***
BENNY ANDERSSON is sitting in his office on Skeppsholmen in Stockholm. In the house next door there is an entire recording studio. There, the final productions are made with all the musicians. But it is here in the office room that he now writes new music.
Benny Andersson is the one of the four Abba members who is by far the most active today. He tours and makes new albums with BAO, Benny Andersson's Orchestra. In parallel with their musical projects, Björn and Benny collaborate quietly with BAO. Björn steps in and writes lyrics to a couple of songs on each album. Each BAO album thus has a couple of new songs with Andersson-Ulvaeus as the composer's name, a world first if they bothered to market it.
Benny Andersson also continuously makes music for films, theatre and stage productions. He composed the music for the PALME documentary. Right now, he is working with his son LUDVIG on the film adaptation of the acclaimed young adult novel The Circle, where they have stepped in as producers for the entire film.
"I like to keep going."
We start talking about the Eurovision song contest that will be held the week after we meet. Benny Andersson plays the anthem that he and Björn Ulvaeus wrote for the inauguration, We write the story, with an intro by AVICII.
"I haven't played this for anyone yet." He turns up the volume. During the magnificent choir arrangement, it is impossible not to think of the "girls". We write the story could have been a new Abba song, a continuation of the musical suite on The Album.
When Benny Andersson talks about working on the song, you begin to sense the real reason why he agreed to do it - musical respect for those involved.
"Have you met MARTIN ÖSTERDAHL (the producer for the entire ESC and new program director for SVT from September)? I liked him, he had good ideas, cares about music. Did you know that he is the son of MARCUS ÖSTERDAHL? The old orchestra leader. He plays bass on Du är den enda med LILL LINDFORS."
There is no greater praise than that in Benny Andersson's book.
How did it feel when Abba participated in the Eurovision song contest in 1974?
"It's special when it's a competition. Something happens to you. The feeling of standing there and knowing that there are 16 others who are also going to sing and want to win as much as you, it evokes adrenaline. But I like it. The competition element is the whole substance of Melodifestivalen, I think, that's what makes it interesting. When we heard the other entries, I was worried about Mouth & MacNeal and their I see a star. It was a good song."
Did you talk to any other artists backstage?
"We hung out a bit with OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN (who was racing for England at the time, four years before she made Grease). Nice donna. We met her several times later in the years."
We sit on either side of his desk. Behind him is Benny Andersson's grand piano. When I ask questions, and he has to explain things, he turns around to the grand piano showing concrete notes and fingering. Melody loops that I have heard thousands of times fill the room. Snipptar from Thank you for the music, The winner takes it all, Mamma mia, Honey honey. To hear them in this way - a few notes from a solitary piano - is a reminder of the primal power of the melodies.
To the right of the grand piano is a Synclavier, an instrument worshipped and mythical in music circles. Synclavier is an early digital synthesizer and sound module with sampler (sound processing) that appeared long before the terms sampler or sound module were used. For example, the "gong" sound at the beginning of MICHAEL JACKSON's Beat it comes from a Synclavier.
When I asked Frida where the melancholy and minor notes in Abba's music come from, she answered immediately: "Benny and his grandfather's accordion".
"It's a truth with modification. When I played with my grandfather, there was no melancholy, it was just incredibly pleasurable. I sat next to him and we each played an accordion. I joined in as best I could and of course played a lot of mistakes. But he never rebuked me, he let me be. To experience it meant a lot to a little boy's self-esteem. I played the accordion with my father too, but then it was more 'That's the wrong chord'. Grandpa always trusted that you will fix that eventually. Since he believed it, I believed it too. And I still believe that."
"But the melancholy ... Yes, it was there, it was also something we shared. I think it has to do with the vodka belt. Dark. When you start playing, it comes out."
We did wistful undercover. Even the happiest songs are melancholy at their core. Take 'Honey honey' for example, a happy song right? But listen to the basic melody.
How does a melody actually come about?
"A very good question. I don't really know. But my method is that I sit here (at the grand piano) and just start playing, completely unconditionally. (He plays for a little while). Was that music? Was it something to have? Perhaps. It's not really about improvisation. What I'm looking for is to find out what's in what I think is something to have."
How do you know when you've found it?
"I hear it. I trust myself. That's where grandfather comes in, it's his credit. Why I choose this instead of that, I don't know, but I work until the melodies are there. When the lyrics are added, it always makes a difference, the song lifts further. But I don't interfere in the text. Björn can write whatever he wants. I'm so happy if there is substance in the text, there always is nowadays. But I focus on where the syllables should be placed."
How often do you sit and write new music in this way?
"Every day. I sometimes get the question: 'How long does it take to write a new song?'. A few years ago, I made a compilation of how much music I've written in my life. Hep Stars, Abba, Chess, Kristina from Duvemåla, BAO, rubbet. In total, it was somewhere around 20 hours of music. It doesn't get any more. If you knock out the 20 hours in 50 years, you get the answer: that's how long it takes to write a song."
Do you record on tape recorders to remember melodies?
"No, never. When I have something ready, I go to the Synclavier. I put on a drum beat, strings, maybe a clarinet. My requirement for a song is that it has its own identity. You can make a song by taking a Beatles phrase here, a Beach Boys phrase there, and then piecing together something new. There are many people in this country who do that way. Nothing wrong with that, it works. But for me, the whole point lies in finding a melody that no one has heard before but that still sounds accessible."
A lot has been written about Abba but remarkably little about the music itself.
"That's where it sits, if you ask me. How it sounds. Who the girls are. How it is mixed, edited, arranged. That's what made Abba Abba. Everything else is just external influences. We didn't do anything else during those ten years than write and record music. Björn and I worked all the time. MICKE B TRETOW (sound engineer) also had a large part in the work. We were never satisfied until we all thought it was good. It was understood that one of us liked something was not enough."
"The capacity of the girls was also unique. The fact that one is a soprano and one is a mezzo means that you get a range from low D to high D. That's quite a lot," says Benny Andersson and points to the piano. The hands end up wide apart.
"Unfortunately, I still tend to think about that range when I write. The notes spread out too much and it becomes impossible to sing for one person, even if it is HELEN (SJÖHOLM, member of BAO) or TOMMY (KÖRBERG, member of BAO). But then it was possible to write when both girls sang together. It's interesting to think about what it is in Abba that really took off. We made some good records, sure, but we weren't alone in that. It must be something more. What Do you think?"
It is unusual to have such light and life-affirming music that is at the same time so dark and melancholy.
"That was really the case. We did wistful undercover. Everything. Even the happiest songs are melancholy at their core. Take Honey honey for example, a happy song right? But listen to the basic melody."
Benny Andersson sits down and plays Honey honey and it sounds so sad that it tears at my heart.
"I wonder if the music will be like you are? Maybe that's what it's all about. If you are not true to yourself, the music will not have a sender. When we made the music, we had no idea that it would go well. We were just being honest with ourselves, doing what we liked."
The hard part is always to make it look easy. Your melodies were so elaborate that they stuck right away, while the songs, the arrangements, are so complex that you never get tired of them.
"The song Mamma mia is a good example of that. Listen here to the basics."
He plays an extremely simple loop that is repeated all the time. Ta-da, dida, ta-da, dida, ta-da, dida.
"That's it. So little that it's almost nothing. But then there is the rest. Mamma mia was the first song that we arranged really hard. It was then (1975) that we learned how to do it. Almost all the songs after that got that kind of arrangement."
When you say hard scarred, what exactly do you mean?
"That all instruments add something that deviates from the basic melody. Listen to the marimban, listen to the guitar. They play their own defined lines, completely different things than the basic melody. We worked on it for as long as we wanted. Added lots of detail."
What Benny Andersson says next should be framed:
"When you write, you should remove, scale down, minimize. The frame itself should be as clear and simple as possible. Then you can start building on and making the song complex through arrangements and production."
There are so many musicians who don't understand the difference and do exactly the opposite. Writes for sprawling melodies and for straight arrangements.
"It's important to have a little luck sometimes too. When the winner takes it all. What the song is based on are two short themes that are repeated. When we first recorded it, it didn't work. It just became flat. What makes it all connected is the underlying obligate (in this case, instruments that have prominent secondary parts). When they arrived, it was all intertwined. Everything must correspond, melody, harmony, rhythm."
How long did you work with the songs in the studio?
"The first few years we didn't have much time. We first got our own studio, Polar, in 1978. Before that, we recorded in Atlantis (studio on Karlbergsvägen in Stockholm) which we only had access to one day a week."
One day a week?
"Yes, that would be enough, not only to do everything with Abba but also for the productions we do with TED GÄRDESTAD, LENA ANDERSSON and other Polar artists. Today, I don't understand how it was physically possible. But we were young then, we had the energy to work faster. Sometimes we managed to steal a day from Sonet: they had Wednesdays, we had Tuesdays. It was a matter of speeding up in the studio."
When you work under strong time pressure, you are also forced to trust your intuition to a greater extent, right?
"Just like that. And that's an ingredient that you don't have now. With the technologically advanced home studios that exist today, you can go on forever. Above all, change as much as you want. You can change just about anything with Pro Tools (music production software). It can be good in a way, you can correct the hi-hat on bar 47. But it can give you more choices than you can handle."
Which Abba album are you most satisfied with yourself?
"Oh, hard. But I say Super Trouper. There are not many pole shots on it. On some of the early albums there are those. Björn and I had some idea that it was cooler to do rock'n'roll and insisted on including rock songs. We shouldn't have had that."
But a rock song like Hey hey Helen is fantastic. Per Gessle said that Roxette had started all the concerts on their latest world tour by playing it in the speakers before they went up on stage.
"You're kidding? There you see, haha."
What kind of music do you listen to?
"I've stopped listening to pop. I stopped doing that when we did Chess. Since then, I've only listened to classical music and folk music. But during the Abba years, I was in control. It was fun and interesting to follow what the others were doing. What does the Eagles' new single sound like? What does ROD STEWART DO? How did DONNA SUMMER get that sound?"
Benny Andersson walks around the room, sits down at the grand piano, plays some more. It will be Thank you for the music, an evergreen that sounds as if it could have been written by IRVING BERLIN in the 1940s.
"This one was an exception. I wrote it in half an hour at Stikkan's house at a party. He had a piano under the stairs in the recreation room. I stood there, started playing and the song was just there. These are the kind of moments you wait for. I'm not religious, but if I were, I'd describe it as some divine force intervening. 'Okay, now he's been here four and a half months, now he's worth a couple of minutes'. When those minutes come, it's an uphill battle I can surf on for days. It's a huge euphoria. It's the only time in my life I feel that. You never know when it will end. But to be able to come here every day and try, it's a pretty wonderful job."
WHEN BJÖRN AND BENNY bump into each other in the break room in the latter's studio on Skeppsholmen, they just nod. They don't say anything, they don't need to. The nod contains 46 years of friendship.
Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson met for the first time in June 1966. Two of the biggest Swedish bands of the 1960s were out touring Sweden this summer: Hootenanny Singers with Björn on vocals and guitar and Hep Stars with Benny on keyboards.
The Hootenanny Singers were to be drafted. At the roadside, they met the Hep Stars and invited them to an afterparty by shouting: "Party in Lidköping!"
"We were in the Skara area somewhere," Benny Andersson recalls.
"We thought, fun, we're coming! In the evening we wandered around in Lidköping and looked for their hotel. But there was no hotel with that name. After we called someone wiseit turned out that we had heard wrong - they had said Linköping. There wasn't much to do. We drove there instead and arrived a couple of hours late."
"We partied for so long that we were driven out of the hotel," says Björn Ulvaeus.
"Early in the morning, when the sun came up, Benny and I were sitting in a park with acoustic guitars playing Beatles songs."
A couple of weeks later, they arranged to meet in Västervik. Björn Ulvaeus' father lent out his office at the paper mill. When the cleaners arrived the next morning, Andersson/Ulvaeus had signed their first composition, Isn't it easy to say, which ended up on Hep Stars' fourth album.
Björn Ulvaeus is the one of the Abba members who has been most visible in the media in modern times, but it is so rarely that he talks about music that you almost have to remind you of his musical role.
He was the lead singer and frontman of the Hootenanny Singers and also sings on many Abba songs. The Hootenanny Singers made folk rock by Swedish poets such as DAN ANDERSSON and NILS FERLIN in the same way that Mando Diao does today with GUSTAF FRÖDING.
"It's great that Mando Diao has picked up that tradition," says Björn Ulvaeus.
"That this treasure does not fall into oblivion. I wish Mando Diao takes HJALMAR GULLBERG next time."
Why don't you sing yourself nowadays? Making solo albums? Or is part of a program like So much better? You would be cast there.
"Of course I could pick up a guitar in some context and sing Kring tiggar'n from Luossa (one of the biggest hit songs of all time on Svensktoppen). Maybe I will do that one day too. But I have been asked by So much better and said no. So many days of recording, exposing yourself like that... No, it's not for me."
***
In today's historiography it is said that Benny Andersson wrote the music and Björn Ulvaeus wrote the lyrics.
That was not the case. They wrote all the Abba songs together, although Benny did the main music work. Then Björn wrote the lyrics.
"The division with us writing in separate places we started with first on Kristina from Duvemåla. It was easiest that way, for practical reasons. But until then, we always sat in the same room and wrote. Often on Viggsö."
At the Abba Museum, the writer's cottage has been reconstructed on Viggsö, a kilometre-long island in the Stockholm archipelago located between Grinda and Värmdö. Several dozen of pop history's most indestructible songs were written there in the archipelago house.
We were good at cleaning up, throwing a lot of stuff. We couldn't hide anything. Two guys sitting out on an island, with acoustic guitar and piano and singing quite risky - then you have to have the song really carry.
"There we sat, from morning to evening, in the little red cottage on the mountain crest, just writing and writing. Below is the main house. Sometimes when I was sleeping in the morning, I could hear from down the mountain that Benny had already started, it echoed from the piano. In the summers, we had the families there. We also went out in the winters sometimes and wrote."
In all the studios of today, you have room service. What did you eat when you were isolated out there?
"Gosh, haha, I've hardly thought about that. Sometimes we might cook something simpler, but we don't want to spend time on anything other than the music... But, that's right, we brought ready-made food from Östermalmshallen, at least sometimes. The way we worked out on Viggsö emphasizes what it's all about: work, work, work. And time. If you don't put in an extreme amount of time, you'll never be sharp at what you do."
"We were also good at cleaning up, throwing a lot of stuff. Many people settle for things they shouldn't settle for. We couldn't hide anything. Two guys sitting out on an island, with acoustic guitar and piano and singing quite shaky, then you have to have the song really carry."
Which lyricists have inspired you the most?
"Stikkan (Anderson) was very important as a mentor. He taught me the craft, showed me the importance of it. I have also returned to Swedish poets such as PÄR LAGERKVIST, Hjalmar Gullberg, Nils Ferlin. I'm not saying that it shows in my texts, but I've read them."
What exactly do you mean by craftsmanship?
"Finding a hook, a verse, a chorus. How to relate to the most tangible. Stikkan was also good at coming up with titles. I have really learned that from him."
Long before you, Benny and Stikkan wrote songs like Waterloo, you wrote classics like Ljuva sexital for Brita Borg.
"It was entirely Stikkan's text. He could really write nice lyrics. Stikkan's problem was that his English was not so brilliant. After we initially wrote Abba lyrics together, I started writing them myself. In the beginning we didn't care about lyrics at all, hence songs like Hej gamle man. Gradually, I then started to learn, discovered that it was actually possible to express something."
How does a text come about? How does it start?
"Have you read the book Thinking fast and slow by DANIEL KAHNEMAN? It describes thought processes very well. I try to be totally open when I listen to what Benny has written today. Just listen, let the associations be completely free. Then I can look at it with the other side of the brain, the intellectual, and process what my intuition coughed up."
Songs like Fernando (with references to Mexican rebels) take place in set designs that are quite odd for pop music.
"That's because I always start with an image when I write. CATHERINE (JOHNSON, who wrote the musical and movie Mamma mia!) says that's why it was possible to make Mamma mia!. Because there are so many images in my texts, small stories that can then be transferred to other situations. The lyrics to Slipping through my fingers started for me with a picture when I leave LINDA (Björn's and Agnetha's daughter) at school. In the musical, that image could be used when the mother hands over thedaughter to get married. It's the same feeling."
To say that Mamma mia! (premiered in the West End in 1999) has been a success is an understatement. To date, 50 million tickets have been sold for Mamma mia!. 50 million people have seen the performance on site in a salon and paid at least SEK 500 for their ticket.
The fact that screenwriter Catherine Johnson and producer JUDY CRAYMER are included on lists of Britain's richest people after that musical says something about how much money it has brought in. Besides that, the film version is the highest-grossing cinema to date in the UK and the DVD is the best-selling DVD of all time.
THE MUSICAL MAMMA MIA! is entirely Björn Ulvaeus' project. He is also the one who has run the Abba Museum.
The Mamma mia! would never have been realized without what happened in 1992. During the 1980s, very few people praised Abba. MAURO SCOCCO says that when his group Ratata in 1981 wanted to show that they liked Abba - as a protest against the prog wave and the Swedish media's view of Abba - they had to make their own rock labels; There were none to buy.
Even during its heyday in the 1970s, Abba did not receive any recognition at home. Profiles and those in power in Swedish television and radio - there were only state channels - declared that Abbas's music was superficial and reprehensible. Nynningen and NJA-Gruppen were better. Even music teachers at my school sneered at Abba.
When Abba had just won the Eurovision song contest in Brighton with Waterloo, they were met by a reporter from Rapport who did not say congratulations but held out the microphone from under their noses and asked if it was not distasteful to make entertainment of a kind where so many people had died.
Two years later, in 1976, Sweden did not participate in the Eurovision Song Contest after pressure from left-wing groups.
"At the same time, you should remember that the prog wave in Sweden was greater in the mass media than among the people," says Björn Ulvaeus.
"In the mass media, prog was blown up as the world's thing. But record sales during the same period give a completely different picture of what was broadly rooted in the depths of the people. There it was us and the dance band. At the height of the prog wave, we released an album (Abba The Album, 1977) that was pre-ordered in Sweden alone in 760,000 copies. It felt pretty good."
The interest was pretty cool. Stikkan told me that then, in 1974, several record companies said that it was out with piano in pop.
THE RE-EVALUATION OF ABBA began in 1992. One sign was that U2 during their visually groundbreaking Zoo TV Tour played a cover of Dancing Queen. During the gig at the Globe in Stockholm - I was there - Björn and Benny, without warning, stepped up on stage and accompanied BONO on guitar and piano.
Another sign was that when Nirvana - the world's hottest band of that year - played at the festival Reading in England, KURT COBAIN personally requested to have the Abba cover band Björn Again as the opening act. Kurt Cobain declared that he loved Abba, and shockwaves went through the grunge audience. The fact that it was considered gay to like Abba was only to the advantage of Kurt Cobain, who hated the rock 'n' roll culture.
Björn Again came from Australia, where Abba has developed into almost a subculture, not least in gay circles. In parallel with Björn Again touring nonstop, scripts were written for two Australian films where Abba songs had a central part in the plot: Priscilla - the queen of the desert and Muriel's wedding.
The culmination of the 1992 Abba revival came when the English synth duo Erasure released the tribute EP Abba-esque with interpretations of four Abba songs: Lay all your love on me, SOS, Take a chance on me and Voulez-vous. Erasure also released pastiche videos in which they mimicked Abba's movements in a similar way to shows in gay clubs. (Erasure were such extreme Abba fans that the duo considered using Benny Andersson's recordings of Swedish birdsong in the speakers before they went on stage.)
During her days in London, Agnetha Fältskog made an appearance at London's largest gay club, G-A-Y Heaven, as a way to meet and thank her most loyal audience. She stepped onto the stage in the company of a dog, a little white terrier who pawed behind her high-heeled shoes. She took a few dance steps to the Dancing queen, received flowers and received the audience's thunderous ovations.
At the same time as Erasure's Abba-esque topped the charts, Polygram (today part of Universal) woke up. In May 1989, Stikkan Anderson sold the publishing house Sweden Music, including the entire Abba catalogue, to the multinational giant Polygram. The sale created strained relations with the Abba members. The price has been reported to be around 300 million Swedish kronor - a gigantic undervaluation, seen in retrospect. But, as I said, no one thought Abba was worth anything in the late 1980s.
Until Polygram's takeover, the Abba catalogue was spread across a number of record labels in different countries in a way that distinguishes Abba from other world groups. In the United States, Abba was on Atlantic, in England on Epic, in Australia on RCA, in Germany on Polydor, in Sweden on Polar.
"Stikkan simply took the deals he got when he traveled around with Waterloo," says Benny Andersson.
"The interest was pretty cool. Stikkan told me that then, in 1974, several record companies said that it was out with piano in pop."
Polygram cleared up the company confusion, withdrew all old releases, all old albums and compilations, and instead focused on the collection Abba Gold, which was released at the end of 1992. The opening song was Dancing queen. It turned out to be one of the smartest decisions in record history.
Abba Gold has today sold 30 million copies worldwide. In Sweden, the album is still on the sales chart this week. In the UK, Abba Gold recently overtook the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper on the list of best-selling albums of all time and is currently in second place. (Number one is Queen's Greatest hits).
IT WAS THE COMBINATION of Abba Gold, Björn Again, Erasure, Muriel's Wedding and Priscilla - Queen of the Desert that made Björn Ulvaeus in the mid-1990s start sketching a musical about Abba.
"Everyone expected the musical to be the story of Abba," he says. "But I didn't want to do it. Instead, I went to Catherine and said: 'Here you go, here you have a hundred songs, do exactly what you want. There are only two rules. 1. The story is the important thing, the songs should be subordinate to the story. 2. You may not change the texts.' Everyone thought the idea was completely insane."
Catherine Johnson and Björn Ulvaeus bounced the story back and forth for several years before the musical was ready to be launched.
"Then we continued to change during the rehearsal. The waiter Fernando disappeared at an early stage. The musical was not called Mamma mia either! without Summer Night City. That name was there until the first preview, when we decided to delete the ten-minute opening number with that song. Musicals always open like that, with a big number. Instead, we went straight into the story. I've learned: the story is everything."
Björn Ulvaeus has also brought the realisation that the story is everything to the Abba Museum. Once again, he has collaborated with Catherine Johnson.
"Catherine flew over last winter and did long interviews with all four of us. Based on them, she wrote a script, the story of Abba, with selected lines that we then re-read."
At the museum, for example, you can hear Björn and Agnetha together talk about how they met.
"There were a lot of emotions that came out when we recorded it," says Agnetha Fältskog, "but it turned out nicely."
Björn Ulvaeus also says that he has stopped listening to pop, except on the car radio.
"I listen almost exclusively to Beethoven's symphonies, and preferably in headphones. The drama, the passion, the strong emotions that are in it; it beats everything."
Just before I turn off the tape recorder, he leans back in his chair, looks out the window and says:
"There are so many coincidences that control your life. What are the odds that I would meet Benny in that way, on the roadside, and that we would get to know each other? What are the odds that I would then meet Agnetha? The fact that we became a couple had nothing to do with music really, even though I thought she was fantastic as a singer. And what are the odds that Benny a few months later would meet Frida, who is also a terribly good singer? And that one is a soprano and the other is a mezzo and that it sounds magical when they sing together? That really shouldn't be able to happen.
