ABBAgaffes

That Mike Smith/Agnetha interview shows Agnetha at her most charming and gorgeous. For giggles, turn on the cc/subtitles.... You get things like this:

Swap Shop wasn't really a trick question kinda show  

LOL. There are a few hilarious ones in there.

It's only an ickle gaffe I know, but to keep the thread going, here the BBC interviewer misses a word out of the title of Agnetha's single and recovers after the gentlest of corrections: 'when you really really love someone' 

A gaffe by ABBA, rather than about them, just for a change and to keep the thread going.

Agnetha does one twirl too many

An appreciative comment for a TACOM YouTube upload. I hope the contributor meant 'immortal'

Here, ABBA members have been asked to provide voice samples for a proposed animation and Frida is reading something out. My guess is that the text is "Such is the rapport...". Not recognizing the word, she struggles with it and, assuming it's "report", says indignantly "they spelt it wrong!"


 

And then she plays it off going "But da da da da da da da" 

Here Agnetha talks about ABBA being the name of an old "hearing" factory. She means, of course "herring". The interviewer seems understandably clueless...

I'm surprised that I've never noticed this before, but a sharp eyed YouTuber has commented that in the official Waterloo video, after the girls finish the first chorus they are still singing away even though there are no vocals to be sung.

It's clear from Bjorn's guitar chords that they must be singing a verse (starting at 'My, my'), and indeed on closer inspection it is simply a repeat of the footage of the opening verse 

There are a few things going on here. First, DQ was originally in A, but this is in B. However, Björn (and I think the Edge too, but more difficult to see) has got his guitar tuned down a semitone so that he can play it in C instead of B (easier). Now, Benny doesn't have that luxury on his little keyboard; you can see he is having to work the black notes, so he isn't in C. This isn't too much of a problem for him cos he starts off in the correct key, but on top of all this the Edge is playing the chords all wrong in several places even before B & B join in. In particular, when they are singing 'where they play the right music, getting in the swing' he is playing the 'look for a king' chords (F# then Abm in B, or G then Am in C). The second of these chords is wrong and Benny is probably pausing because if he played the correct suspended chord it would clash. You can see Björn giving Benny a concerned glance as if to say 'what are they doing to our song?'

The whole thing sounds awfully under-rehearsed; if they had picked a different key then Bono might have had a shot at reducing the number of embarrassing octave changes he had to make. It makes it a bit of an insult rather than a tribute that they couldn't be bothered to learn the song properly. Now if they had chosen The Visitors instead of DQ it could have been great.

By 1983, that was certainly an ignorant question. But in the Swedish media they were actually regarded as a bit of a desperate gimmick at the beginning, even by well-meaning critics, since they were all national household names from their previous, separate careers. Incredible as it may sound today, they were looked upon as has-beens!

This is now my favourite ever A & F microgaffe. Yes, even better than the Fernando camera angle confusion, or the superfluous So Long twirl.

Belying her reputation as the shy one, as the music strikes up Agnetha is the one in the mood for dancing. After a short period of enthusiastic lone jiggling, she finally notices that Frida has been standing still throughout, in SOS intro style. Agnetha belatedly assumes the same stance but, like a train applying brakes, it takes a while for the wiggling to wane. 

We get a second gaffe for free, because Benny is busy stroking his hair when the song begins. Not for the first time, his piano has no alternative but to start without him.