Abba: 50 Years Since Eurovision (2024) Movie Script
(Benny speaking in
foreign language)
(gentle serene music)
- They start their
songs off in majors,
but they use quite a few minors
in their chords' patterns,
and that takes you right down,
and the atmospheres they
create are quite sad,
but however, they've
got these two girls,
singing these glorious
anthems over the top,
and Bjorn is a
fantastic musician.
The air that night
The stars were bright
Fernando
They were shining
there for you and me
For liberty
Fernando
- A lot of people
are interested, what
makes a hit record?
And ABBA really, really
knew how to do it.
- Make room for ABBA,
and music of this day.
There is absolutely
no chance for gloom
when they start
to sing and play.
(uplifting music)
- [Narrator] The journey begins
with Bjorn Ulvaeus
and Benny Andersson,
the founding members
of the super group.
- [Bjorn] But I
think the first music
that really meant something
to me personally was
when I first heard
the skiffle music,
which was when I was 11 or 12.
And in fact, I started
playing in a skiffle group
at that time, too.
- Bjorn was a member of a group.
- [Journalist] What was
the name of the group?
- It was The Hootenanny Singers.
- Bjorn, a member of
The Hootenanny Singers,
which is a term,
that is hootenanny,
which referred to a
gathering of folk musicians.
(host speaking foreign language)
(bright music)
Never go playin' round
Don't get out of line
Never go runnin' round
- [Narrator] By the 1960s,
they were a household name
in Swedish popular music.
Bjorn's amateur
competition performances
caught the attention of future
ABBA manager, Stig Anderson.
- I was an actor, guitar player,
and I wrote my own
songs back in the '50s.
I was performing these in the,
what we call the Swedish
folkparks, open air theaters,
and that's really how I started.
I had a big hit in Holland
called "Rocking Billy".
(Valk singing in
foreign language)
- Benny was probably
the most advanced
as one of the Hep Stars,
and they were big news.
- [Benny] I started
working professionally
in '62, '63, I think, with
a band called the Hep Stars.
- [Narrator] The Hep
Stars eventually became
the most successful Swedish
pop rock group of the mid '60s.
- Starting off with covers,
and then moving to
original material.
- I wrote a song called "Sunny
Girl" for the Hep Stars.
I think we had a hit
with that in Holland.
She is property
She's slim like reed
She's divertin',
she is faithful
Ain't that all you need
- They were very, very big.
In Sweden, they were
bigger than The Beatles.
- [Journalist] Bigger
than The Beatles?
Was that around about
the '60s, was it?
- Yes, the early '60s.
- [Narrator] They
hit massive success
with the Swedish version
of "Last Night I Had
The Strangest Dream",
but being a folk song,
it caused confusion among
the rock-oriented fans
and left the band divided.
Bjorn stepped in to help
Benny and the band in 1969,
as the Hep Stars' success
had started to diminish.
- We were touring the folkparks,
places that you tour in
Sweden, play during the summer,
and we just ran into each other.
- And I knew that he wrote
songs, and he knew that I wrote,
so we just, you know,
we happened to meet
and we sat down and
played a little.
I think we both thought
that the other guy was
quite, quite nice, you know?
Maybe we could,
someday in the future,
be able to work together.
- [Narrator] Benny and
Bjorn left the band in 1969,
but a friendship had blossomed
that would keep the duo working
together for years to come.
- I really find it interesting
that their coming together
was natural, it wasn't forced.
They just would
run into each other
in what was, after all,
a small national market,
an artistic community.
They would occasionally
make records together.
So Bjorn and Benny struck
first together as writers,
and then they decided
to be a quartet.
- Agnetha was a teenage prodigy.
She was the youngest
of the four,
and she had a lot of solo hits
in the Scandinavian area,
and she was a very pretty girl.
- Well, Agnetha, Agnetha.
You want me to
say it in Swedish?
Agnetha.
- Yeah.
- She was very popular as a,
she was singing romantic
songs, songs about summer,
and she break through
when she were an operator.
She worked as an operator
and break through
suddenly via a TV program,
and she was popular
for five or six years.
- [Agnetha] I
wrote my own songs.
I did six Swedish solo LPs.
(Agnetha singing in
foreign language)
- [Narrator] Bjorn
met Agnetha by 1968.
The two fell in love and
eventually tied the knot
on the 6th of July, 1971,
with Benny playing
the church organ.
Around the same time,
Benny had fallen in love
with Anni-Frid Lyngstad.
Already a successful artist,
she had won a Swedish national
talent competition in 1967
and finished fourth in the
1969 Eurovision Song contest.
- I was brought up
by my grandmother,
and she was a good lady.
She took good care of me,
though she had to work hard
to get the money to survive,
but I started to sing in dance
band when I was 13 years old,
and after two years, or one
year, I changed to a big band,
and together with them,
I sang for two years,
and after the split
up with the big band,
I started my own band,
and the name of that
band was Anni-Frid Four.
I met my husband
in the big band,
he was playing the trombone,
and we fell in love, you know?
I was quite young, but
I knew that I wanted
to be together with him,
so I got my son when
I was 17 years only,
and we got married
when I was 18,
and after four years,
I got my daughter.
(Anni-Frid singing
in foreign language)
- Frida came from a
small town in Sweden.
She came originally from Norway,
then to Sweden, a small town,
started singing there and
was popular with few songs.
Not as popular as Agnetha
in the beginning, I think.
- Her father was a Nazi
and impregnated some unfortunate
young lady in Norway.
Then she moved later to Sweden,
so they really are all
effectively, eventually Swedish,
but they didn't start that way.
- Benny and Bjorn were
recording an album on their own
with all the songs
written by them,
and for one song, they
needed a female choir,
so it was very natural
to ask Agnetha and myself
if we wanted to do that part,
and so we did, and we
thought it sounded very good.
And then we decided maybe
to try something in English,
so Benny and Bjorn wrote a
song with English lyrics,
and the title of that one
is "People Need Love",
and that's how it
started, actually.
- Benny and Frida had met
at the equivalent of
"A Song for Europe",
which was called
Musicfestivalen,
which was where
Swedish audiences
chose their Eurovision song.
So they met there, and
gradually, they got together,
and finally, in what is
of interest to ABBA fans,
at the instigation
of Stig Anderson,
they wrote a song
for Eurovision 1973,
and that was "Ring Ring".
(upbeat music)
And I sit all
alone impatiently
- [Narrator] The
band came in third,
but wasn't disheartened
by the loss.
- Well, partly, it depended on
that I thought it
was a new approach
to the Eurovision Song Contest.
It was a pop song,
and I thought,
the Eurovision Song Contest
needed something new.
- It basically really
incentivized them.
They had an English
lyric worked out for that
with Neil Sedaka and Phil Cody,
because their English
wasn't perfect yet.
Of course, then the big one was,
they thought, well,
we came in third,
or whatever it was, in the
local "Song for Europe" in '73,
why not try again?
- [Narrator] They prepared
to take a different approach
for the following
year's contest.
Growing tired of the
current name of the band,
Stig Anderson, their manager,
stumbled upon
something distinctive
that would change the
face of their brand.
- Bjorn and Benny
wanted to start
recording their own songs
which they wrote together,
and then sometimes they
needed the girls' help,
and it was natural for them
to take Agnetha, or Anna,
and Frida in the studio,
and these records from
the very beginning,
they were called Bjorn
and Benny at that time,
but, gradually, the girls
became more and more important,
and in fact, we had a very big
hit in, for instance, Japan.
The record was called
Bjorn and Benny
in spite of that the girls
really were heard on the record,
and consequently, Bjorn
and Benny came and said,
listen, we can't go on calling
ourselves Bjorn and Benny
when the public hear the girls.
- No doubt about
it, the winning song
of the 1974 Eurovision
Song Contest,
(speaking in French).
(triumphant music)
(audience applauding)
- But then we had one of the
biggest papers here in Sweden
who asked the youngsters,
what would you like
to call this group?
And of course, they
already had heard
about ABBA at that time,
so I think 90% of
them said ABBA,
and the first time we really
used it was in Brighton
when we won the Eurovision
Song Contest there
in '74, it was,
but that was the very first
time we used just ABBA.
- He knew what
Eurovision was all about,
and knew that if he could
get them to win Eurovision,
it would be the
passport to the world.
- Eurovision is a
competition set up
for all European countries
to compete to produce
the best song.
Not performance, song.
- Having failed in 1973,
they thought they'd
try again in 1974,
and this time,
they got it right.
- They were the only
one of their kind,
because we were just
coming to the end
of the singer-songwriter period,
which was sensitive ballads
by people like Carole
King, Don McLean,
Cat Stevens, Elton
John, Joni Mitchell,
and here we had four people
having a good time with
old fashioned pop music.
(cheerful jaunty music)
My my
At Waterloo, Napoleon
did surrender
Oh yeah
And I have met my destiny
in quite a similar way
- Every country
tends to have an idea
of what a Eurovision
song should be.
For example, with Germans,
and this is a generalization,
but let's just say frequently,
there was a kind of oom-pah
element in the song,
and this is why Cliff
Richard had a couple
of Eurovision songs
with an oom-pah feeling,
"Power to All Our Friends"
and "Congratulations".
Congratulations
Boom, boom.
Congratulations
And celebrations
When I tell everyone that
- "Waterloo" was a pop record.
It wasn't a Eurovision record,
wasn't a Eurovision type song,
but it was a perfect pop song,
and the winners are often
the songs that cut across.
If they get votes
from everybody,
even if they're not the
number one votes, they'll win,
and that was proof that
"Waterloo" was a song
with international appeal.
Waterloo
I was defeated,
you won the war
Waterloo
Promise to love
you forever more
- It was felt by Stig
Anderson that this was a term
that would be
universally understood
and could be a word that could
be pronounced very easily.
- It was a kind of marketing,
and, as you know, it was
a good idea, I think.
- And just to add to it,
the guy who was
conducting the orchestra
wore a Napoleonic hat.
- That's where it began, and
they wrote that classic song
which shot up the charts,
and they became possibly the
most amazingly successful group
next to The Beatles, in fact.
- It gave us a lot
of work (chuckles)
and a lot of traveling,
and a changing of my life
to be an official, if
you say that, person,
a famous person.
- When you are in a
situation like that,
you have to change a lot
in your life to be able
to take care of what's happening
to you in the right way.
- Going back to that,
these early days,
we had a very big discussion
if we should select "Waterloo"
or another song of ours
called "Hasta Manana",
and then, the last day,
we had to make a decision,
and I told Bjorn and
Benny that, "Okay,
you'll kill me, but
I take 'Waterloo',"
and I think we did right
in spite of, of course,
still, "Hasta Manana", I think,
is a good number as well.
- I didn't even think about
we would win the
Eurovision Song Contest.
At least, I didn't.
- Yes.
- I thought we
had a good chance,
because we had, we
had a different song
from all the others.
Normally, it's very, not
very many uptempo songs,
and, well, we had a
good chance, I thought.
- At that time, we had
the "Hasta Manana".
- Yes.
- Which would've been more
in line with the rest of the
songs of the competition.
- We choose between
the two numbers.
- Yeah.
- "Waterloo"
and "Hasta Manana".
- We just choose "Waterloo"
because we felt that we could
give it the most, you know?
It was ABBA.
- We picked it from, I
think we wrote 11 songs.
We had them and we said,
let's take the best one,
the one we like most,
no matter if it's suitable
for the purpose, which is,
I mean, it was, but
it shouldn't have,
compared to all the other
Eurovision festivals.
It was very outstanding.
Honey honey, how
you thrill me
A-hah, honey honey
Honey honey, nearly kill me
A-hah, honey honey
- [Journalist] Does it surprise
you that a group like ABBA,
a Swedish group, are so big
in a country that's
so, so far away?
- Really.
- Yeah?
- I think it surprises
everyone here,
but it shouldn't
be that surprising,
because they work in
an international way
and they've got an
international sound,
which I don't think any
other Swedish group has.
- [Journalist] Now, before
they became really big,
did they play a lot live
in Sweden or in Stockholm?
Did they play in any live
concerts around the country?
- Not very much, and they
haven't had the time to do it
after their breaking
through, of course.
- [Journalist] Yeah.
- There have been some
complaints of them
that they don't
play live so much,
but they don't have the time.
- They just didn't want to,
because they didn't need to.
I think it's very simple
that they were all,
they just had so much money,
they didn't really
need to tour at all.
- What ABBA did was
place themselves directly
in the mainstream of the
history of popular music,
because they loved
popular music,
they loved its development,
and as Bjorn said to me once,
"We knew we had
to sing in English
if we were gonna make
it outside of Sweden."
And then the big
record is "Mamma Mia",
and that starts this
incredible string
of number ones and top fives.
Will I ever learn
I don't know how
But I suddenly lose control
There's a fire
within my soul
Just one look and I
can hear a bell ring
One more look and
I forget everything
Whoa, oh
Mamma Mia
Here I go again
My my
- We start off with the music.
We sit down with
piano and guitar
and just, you know, play along
for hours and hours, for
days and weeks and months,
and sooner or later, eventually,
there's a song
there, and a melody.
- 'Cause at that stage,
the music, the sound of the
whole thing tells you something,
suggests a story,
so that's where the lyrics
come in, and then the vocals,
and then a few more
overdubs if needed,
and then it's mixed
down, and it's a record.
- And you can see that
Bjorn and Benny were
in their pop moment.
I mean, remember,
10 years before, they had
not been in that moment.
Bjorn was a folk singer,
Benny was a cover artist.
They were in the zone,
and it was their zone.
It was said by Orson
Welles in "Citizen Kane"
that not only was he often
in the news, he was the news,
and ABBA were not only
often in the charts,
they were the charts.
If they had a new record,
it would be number one.
The album would be number one.
Okay, this only lasted
for about five years,
but that's an
eternity in pop music.
- Songwriting is a
very interesting thing.
You use certain letters
that have power.
They're soft letters,
and you use soft letters
in construction of songs.
A song develops, it's
joyful and happy,
and then the middle
eight comes in,
boy loses girl, girl loses boy,
and then all is
joyous at the end.
Now, ABBA, I would say, are the
epitome of getting it right.
They're better than
The Beatles, you know?
Much better.
The Beatles just wrote
songs with one long chorus.
That's what they were good at,
but every song was one chorus.
They were brilliant,
just stuck them together.
ABBA origins, funny enough,
origins are more
in Tamla Motown.
His origins are
with a strong intro,
a very strong verse, a bridge
that builds really well,
and, bang, your chorus.
Out of the chorus,
into the verse,
then into your bridge section,
bang into your chorus,
and then, as I said,
into your middle eight.
Using the right words,
using the right letters,
ABBA, I think, were
the greatest at this.
Darling, can't you hear me
SOS
The love you gave me
Nothing else can save me
SOS
- [Journalist] What do
you think is the magic,
the pure magic of ABBA?
- Well, there isn't one reason,
there are several reasons.
I mentioned one-
- Yeah.
- Stig Anderson.
- His name is always coming
up, and so, you know,
I used to always kind
of watch out for ABBA,
but Anderson's name
was always there.
He was a bit more
than a manager,
and, in a way, probably was
a fifth member of the band,
and they were one of
the richest people
in the whole of Sweden,
and I'm sure that was
down to his acumen.
- Another reason is that
they represent a sort
of distinguished pop, nice pop,
like The Beatles did,
which I think is a reaction
against heavy, dirty rock music,
which only the young kids like.
In Sweden and
everywhere, the kids,
not only the kids can love
ABBA, but also their parents.
- Yeah.
- That's very important.
And, of course, it's
also well they are nice
and good looking people,
and it's the romantic story.
Two of them are married,
two are engaged.
That's a good thing
for the newspapers.
- [Journalist] Yeah.
- [Narrator] 1976 proved
to be a special year
for the members of ABBA.
The band was invited to perform
at a very special event,
debuting their new single,
an aptly named track,
"Dancing Queen".
- [Journalist] Apparently,
there's a story
that they wrote this song
for the queen of Sweden,
it's for the marriage.
When was the marriage, a couple
of months ago or something?
- Yes, it was in June,
and the first performance
of that song was the evening
before the wedding of the
king and the queen, Silvia,
and they sang that song and
played it at the opera house
at a big gala performance.
- [Journalist] In front
of the king and queen?
- Yes, the king and queen
were sitting and listening,
and ABBA had Rococo wigs,
white wigs and old clothes.
Very charming.
- Now make room for ABBA,
and music of this day.
There is absolutely
no chance for gloom
when they start
to sing and play.
You can dance
You can jive
Having the time of your life
Ooh, ooh, ooh
See that girl
Watch that scene
Diggin' the dancing queen
(uplifting cheerful music)
- Well, it's about,
it's a girl, ordinary girl,
and she only lives, actually,
when she's in the disco dancing.
- There is one funny thing
about it, I can tell you.
I think it's the
first song we wrote
when Bjorn played electric
guitar while we were writing,
because he normally
uses acoustic.
- Yes.
- And I think that's one
of the reasons why it came up,
because it's a different sound.
When you sit down with
only piano and the guitar,
nothing really happens, you
have to think in your head
about drums and
bass and all that,
and the electric
guitar made lots
of feel from the beginning.
- [Journalist]
Works really well.
Is "Dancing Queen"
one of your favorites?
- No, actually not.
It's a new one
called "That's Me".
- [Journalist] "That's Me"?
- It will come in
our next album.
- [Bjorn] I think
it's the flip side.
- [Benny] Yeah,
it's the flip side
of "Dancing Queen"
- Yes, it is, yeah.
- [Journalist] Oh no, is it?
- Don't you like it?
- Oh, no, no, no,
I'm not saying that.
I was just thinking of
flip sides, you know?
She ought to be two, a double A.
And Frida, what's
your favorite song?
- Oh, I like "Dancing
Queen" very much.
You know, I had the same
feeling as Anna told you
about before, you know,
when you freeze on a song.
That's how I felt for
"Dancing Queen", but I like,
I think the best one now
is "Money, Money, Money".
- Yeah?
- Yeah.
- [Journalist] What
about "Fernando"?
- Oh, yes.
- [Journalist] All right?
- I like, it's a very
good tune, actually,
a very good melody.
- [Journalist] Yeah.
- I think so, at least.
- She's very kind.
- No, but I like,
I like the songs.
Honestly, I do.
- [Narrator] That same year,
ABBA secured three number ones
for their singles
"Dancing Queen",
"Fernando" and
"Money, Money, Money".
By now, they knew all about
living in a rich man's world.
Money, money, money
Must be funny
In the rich man's world
- [Narrator] After earning
vast amounts of money,
fans started to become as
interested in their funds
as they were with their songs.
- We have decided long ago
to stay in this country.
As you know, Sweden is the most
high taxed country in the world,
and so we had to
invest the money
instead of just
giving it away as tax.
That's the way it started,
the whole organization,
but mainly, other people are
taking care of that for us,
so it's not really the
group ABBA making business.
It's a rich man's world
- Could be real estate,
it could be bicycles,
it could be oil.
You mention it, anything.
Financing, leasing.
We have lots of interest
in all these fields.
It's the rich man's world
(fans speaking indistinctly)
- [Narrator] 1977 saw
ABBA take to the skies,
as they flew on tour around
Europe and Australia.
The Australian leg of the tour
was the band's first major
venture outside of Europe,
and was subsequently filmed
for "ABBA: The Movie".
- From the beginning,
that was just meant
to be a documentary.
I mean, as we were on
the road in Australia,
we thought maybe we
should film it, you know,
for television, for
ourselves, actually,
to have some documents from
when we were in Australia,
but it just grew
bigger and bigger,
and all of a sudden there
was a television movie
for two hours.
- [Bjorn] With a little,
little storyline to it.
- We had a little part
in this Australian tour,
and European tour
in '77, I think,
where we wrote a little
mini-musical within the show,
"The Girl With The Golden Hair",
the two girls playing
two different sides
of the same woman.
(jarring music)
You're so free
That's what
everybody's telling me
Yet I feel I'm like
an outward-bound
Pushed around refugee
Something's wrong
- ABBA were the first artist
who realized you can't
be everywhere at once.
Tour the video, let
the video be your tour.
Sure, do some live dates, but
the video can be everywhere,
and that's why they were
early adapters to the video,
and that's why someone
like French and Saunders
could send up the
ABBA video style
and everybody would get it,
'cause everybody had
seen the ABBA videos.
I'm the first in line
Honey, I'm still free
Take a chance on me
If you need me, let me know
Gonna be around
If you got no place to go
When you're feeling down
If you're all alone
- I happened to
be, at that time,
in Boston, Massachusetts
when the album came out,
that is, "ABBA: The Album",
and I first heard
"Take A Chance On Me",
and from the very beginning,
that very catchy intro,
I just thought, oh
my God, it's a smash.
And you want to
yell out the window,
I have this new record by ABBA,
and it's going to
be a number one.
Would you like to hear it?
Those were the days when
it could be that exciting,
because everybody
didn't get the records
or accessibility to
music on the same day.
One of us is lonely
One of us is only
Waiting for a call
- So I don't know
if there is anything
more to achieve.
I mean, how will that be?
Not by selling records, not
by going on the road, I think.
Not by writing even
better songs forever.
I don't know.
I think it's sort of never
started, never ended, you know?
- I would say that what I
would like to achieve with ABBA
would be to make an
even better album,
which, by our standards and
by the audience's standards,
would be the best one.
- In my spare time,
when I don't work,
I like to journal a lot,
I like to read books,
I like to, in the
summertime, go out sailing
and water skiing.
- [Interviewer] And you, Bjorn?
- What I do in my spare time?
- Yeah.
- Play around with
the kids, read,
prowl the streets,
boating in summer.
Lots of things, normal things
that everybody does, you know?
Watching video, TV.
- Agnetha?
- Mm, the same for me.
I play a lot with the kids
and take long walks
in the wood with my big dog.
- [Interviewer]
What kind of dog?
- I have a Leonberger.
- A what?
- It's a very big one.
- I take care of my little
baby, and read a little,
listen a lot to
music, talk too much.
Under attack,
I'm being taken
- [Narrator] The
four Swedes embarked
on their invasion of America.
California-based Hollywood
star-makers the Scotti Brothers
were involved in the project,
ultimately helping
secure a guest appearance
on a nationally broadcast,
large-budget TV special
involving Olivia Newton
John and Andy Gibb.
The attempt to earn a number one
in the American
charts fell short,
as they had only reached third.
Benny and Frida finally tied
the knot in October, 1978,
but it was feared that the
glitzy group would soon end,
as Bjorn's marriage with
Agnetha had grown problematic.
By Christmas that year, the
couple had sadly divorced.
ABBA pushed on and
stuck together.
- In a sense, probably, that's
why they wrote so many hits.
The atmosphere must have been
emotionally charged
all the time,
the fact that they
were all kind of
with each other as couples,
so there must have been
an incredible tension
going on there.
That tension produced
some amazing songs
that all stand the test of time.
- The music went from pure pop
to thoughtful pop,
to thoughtful music,
and the chart position started
to sag towards the end,
and that's because it
was a kind of music
that wasn't going to be
bought by a 14-year-old.
- [Narrator] The breakup
led to a distinctive change
in the style of music,
acknowledging their
heartache in 1980 hit,
"The Winner Takes It All".
- Well, I think it's
a very good song,
very good melody and
very good lyrics,
and I think it's a whole song,
if you can understand
what I mean.
It goes in a roll, it
never stops in a way.
It goes together.
The winner takes it all
The loser standing small
Beside the victory
- The lyrics are usually
pretty personal nowadays,
and they are the combined
experiences of the four of us
with certain changes.
- And we have been working
together for 10 years.
You can't avoid things
happening in your life,
and as they do, you change
your personality as well.
And it's very natural, isn't it?
That happens to everybody.
And just because
you are a group,
that doesn't mean that we
can be outside a normal life.
- But of course, there are a lot
of things around it, you know,
that can feel a bit heavy.
Super trouper beams
are gonna blind me
But I won't feel blue
Like I always do
'Cause somewhere
in the crowd
- It was about someone who
had grown tired of fame.
Not that they disliked fame,
but it wasn't novel anymore,
it wasn't enough to sustain,
and what was going to
sustain was knowing
that you, the loved one,
was in the audience.
The super trouper beams
are gonna blind me
But I won't feel blue
Super-per, trouper-per
Like I always do
Super-per, trouper-per
'Cause somewhere in
the crowd there's you
- Now, that's the kind of
song that could only come
from the perspective of having
lived something like that.
I saw the end of
ABBA as the generator
of a string of number ones,
not because they were divorcing,
but because they were growing,
and particularly Bjorn
and Benny as writers.
With their increased
command of English,
they weren't doing songs
that had a lot of
repeated syllables.
Think for a moment of
"Ring Ring", "Honey Honey",
"I Do, I Do, I Do, I
Do, I Do", "Mamma Mia",
and then suddenly you get to
"The Day Before You Came",
and they talk about
Marilyn French, the author,
and they're writing
about abstruse thoughts,
complicated thoughts,
a interior epic like "The
Winner Takes It All",
and this is mature music,
and this is about as
mature as pop music goes.
I mean, you can
get into art song,
but when you're doing something
like the kind of material
that was on "The
Visitors" album,
that's about as
far as it can go.
And then, of course,
on the last album,
the last American hit single,
not released in Britain,
"When All is Said and Done",
well, what a perfect
title anyway,
and that line, "Not
too old for sex,"
which suggests that you're
not that young anymore.
In our lives, we have walked
Some strange
and lonely treks
Slightly worn, but dignified
And not too old for sex
- Not too old for sex,
but not teeny boppers.
- We have, in fact,
had some discussions
with Tim Rice in London
about a possible collaboration.
We don't know yet, but
I hope we'll be able
to write a musical
soon together with him.
- I remember being
in a dining club
at a reception for
Bjorn and Benny,
and I was with Tim Rice,
so I just said to Tim
while we were waiting
for Bjorn and Benny to turn up,
and I said, "Well, what
are you gonna do next?"
And he said, "Well, strangely
enough, there's some talk
of writing a musical
with Bjorn and Benny."
So Bjorn and Benny walk in,
and all the press
crowd in around them
and say, "What are
you gonna do next?
What are you gonna do next?"
And they said, "We're
going to write a musical
with Tim Rice."
And Tim said to me, "Well,
I guess I'm committed."
And of course, that
turned out to be "Chess",
which made logical sense
in the progression
of them as writers,
because since they were
now writing adult material,
why not write a musical?
- [Narrator] Benny
and Bjorn went on
to produce their
musical with Tim Rice,
premiering "Chess" in 1984,
based on the Cold War
era chess tournament
between an American
and Soviet grandmaster.
- You know, it's 30 years
since we released
the "Chess" album.
- Is it?
- In November.
It's gonna be 30 years.
- I think it was, yes, I know.
There's lots of
anniversaries this year.
Congratulations to you on yours.
- Yeah, yeah, like,
it's 40 years.
- 40 years.
- And it's 30 years,
and it's 15 years
for "Mamma Mia!".
- And it's 50 for me.
- At that time, the mid '80s,
Tim and Michael Parkinson
owned a building
on Shaftesbury Avenue,
and all of their businesses
had offices in that building.
We had our office in there,
and "Chess", the production
company of the musical,
with Judy Craymer
running the office,
was in the same building,
so we'd all run into each other.
Judy got to know Bjorn
and Benny very well,
and when "Chess" was finished,
she said, "You should have a
musical of your own songs."
And they said, "No,
there's no plot."
And she said, "Well, what
if I can convince you?"
And they said,
"Yeah, well, fine."
Anyway, she gets a
woman to write a book
that would unite their
songs and shows it to them,
and they said, "Well,
if you want to."
(chuckles) I mean, they
were never arrogant.
They never thought, oh yeah,
our songs would make
a great musical,
but they trusted Judy,
and she had this vision,
which she pulled off,
and "Mamma Mia!" became one
of the biggest show business
properties of all time,
in the same sense as
"Phantom of the Opera"
or "The Lion King".
They cross genres and
they just make oodles.
(pensive music)
ABBA made more money
off of "Mamma Mia!"
than from being ABBA.
When you consider all
of the stage shows,
the movies, the whole thing,
"Mamma Mia!" made
more money than ABBA,
and, of course, ABBA was the
second most profitable company
in Sweden when they
were at their peak.
So Judy's vision turned
into this inconceivable
moneymaking machine,
tapping on the love
that people all over
the world had for ABBA.
- [Narrator] The success of
"Mamma Mia!" the musical led
to a movie franchise of the
same name being created in 2008,
starring the likes of Pierce
Brosnan, Meryl Streep,
Colin Firth and Julie Walters.
- Unbelievable, really.
I mean, whoever thought
of that is a genius,
and it'll go on making tons of
money for a long, long time.
- I thought it was
beautifully done.
I mean, the singing
wasn't that good,
especially by Pierce Brosnan,
he can't sing a note,
but the songs were so
strong, they'd carry anyone.
That's the beauty of
their songwriting.
(pensive music)
- [Narrator] 44 years since
forming their supergroup,
ABBA's sound
crossed generations,
proving their music can
stand the test of time.
- Success requires
three factors.
Sufficient talent,
not necessarily genius
like Stevie Wonder,
but sufficient talent,
hard work, and
favorable circumstances.
Well, ABBA brought to the table
at least sufficient talent,
definitely hard work,
and they did have
favorable circumstances.
Part of that was what they
brought about themselves.
They wisely delegated
their costumes,
which they thought were
ridiculous but wore anyway
because they knew
it was of the time,
to someone who knew costumes.
They gave over the making of
the videos to Lasse Hallstrom,
who became a leading
Hollywood director.
Let the person who knows
what he's doing do it.
And Stig Anderson,
the man who founded
Polar Music Publishing
and who believed in them
and who made them write together
and made them submit
a song for Eurovision,
I say made them,
but persuaded them,
and he had a clear view
of how good they were
when they themselves could
not believe in themselves
to the extent that he could,
'cause he was older, he'd seen
more, he knew what it took.
They didn't know they
had what it takes.
200 years from now,
people will still rush
to whatever a dance floor is
the minute that the
opening glissando
on "Dancing Queen" comes on.
(pensive music)
(stirring music)
(crowd cheers)
- [Benny] Hello, London!
(upbeat music)
Summer night city
Voulez-vous
- [Reporter] Four decades
after their split,
ABBA breaks new ground
with the release of their
new concert, "Voyage",
a virtual reality
concert experience
offering fans an immersive
reunion like never before.
- Someone came to say that,
you know, you can go on the
road as holograms on tour,
and you don't even
have to be there,
and we said, yeah.
- The idea came, and we
thought it was irresistible,
because it's something
that is pushing boundaries
and something nobody
has ever seen before.
- Best hair.
- Yeah. (laughs)
- And they said '79, so we
said, okay, let's do '79.
- And we were 29.
- Yeah.
- You know, it's a bit odd,
because you can recognize
yourself in the avatar,
and at the same time,
you're sitting there
as the person you
are, watching it,
and it's a bit,
what would you say?
What expression
would be good for it?
It's a bit.
- It's weird and wonderful.
- It's weird and wonderful
at the same time.
- Yeah.
- Absolutely.
(uplifting music)
New spirit has arrived
So when you're near me
Darling, can't you hear me
SOS
When you're gone
How can I even try to go on
(crowd cheering)
- I mean, there are
life size avatars of us
alongside the musicians,
and I get the illusion,
fuck, there must be
someone up there,
they're there, you know?
Sometimes I get that
illusion completely.
- Guys, it's not very often
we see all four of you
all together as you are today.
What is it like being back,
working together on a project?
- Well, it's quite wonderful.
- We love it.
You know, it's like
going back in time
at the same time we are here
right now in the present,
and we never lost
touch with each other,
so just to be able
to go into the studio
and be creative again
together, it's a gift.
- And, final question,
when people speak to you
and interview you on the street,
are they always dropping
in lines from your songs?
Do people often do that?
- Sometimes they do.
A lot of people say
thank you for the music,
(interviewer laughs)
and it never bores me.
Does it bore you? No.
- No, it doesn't,
it doesn't bore me.
- Well, I won't say thank
you for the interview,
I'll say thank
you for the music.
(gentle serene music)
foreign language)
(gentle serene music)
- They start their
songs off in majors,
but they use quite a few minors
in their chords' patterns,
and that takes you right down,
and the atmospheres they
create are quite sad,
but however, they've
got these two girls,
singing these glorious
anthems over the top,
and Bjorn is a
fantastic musician.
The air that night
The stars were bright
Fernando
They were shining
there for you and me
For liberty
Fernando
- A lot of people
are interested, what
makes a hit record?
And ABBA really, really
knew how to do it.
- Make room for ABBA,
and music of this day.
There is absolutely
no chance for gloom
when they start
to sing and play.
(uplifting music)
- [Narrator] The journey begins
with Bjorn Ulvaeus
and Benny Andersson,
the founding members
of the super group.
- [Bjorn] But I
think the first music
that really meant something
to me personally was
when I first heard
the skiffle music,
which was when I was 11 or 12.
And in fact, I started
playing in a skiffle group
at that time, too.
- Bjorn was a member of a group.
- [Journalist] What was
the name of the group?
- It was The Hootenanny Singers.
- Bjorn, a member of
The Hootenanny Singers,
which is a term,
that is hootenanny,
which referred to a
gathering of folk musicians.
(host speaking foreign language)
(bright music)
Never go playin' round
Don't get out of line
Never go runnin' round
- [Narrator] By the 1960s,
they were a household name
in Swedish popular music.
Bjorn's amateur
competition performances
caught the attention of future
ABBA manager, Stig Anderson.
- I was an actor, guitar player,
and I wrote my own
songs back in the '50s.
I was performing these in the,
what we call the Swedish
folkparks, open air theaters,
and that's really how I started.
I had a big hit in Holland
called "Rocking Billy".
(Valk singing in
foreign language)
- Benny was probably
the most advanced
as one of the Hep Stars,
and they were big news.
- [Benny] I started
working professionally
in '62, '63, I think, with
a band called the Hep Stars.
- [Narrator] The Hep
Stars eventually became
the most successful Swedish
pop rock group of the mid '60s.
- Starting off with covers,
and then moving to
original material.
- I wrote a song called "Sunny
Girl" for the Hep Stars.
I think we had a hit
with that in Holland.
She is property
She's slim like reed
She's divertin',
she is faithful
Ain't that all you need
- They were very, very big.
In Sweden, they were
bigger than The Beatles.
- [Journalist] Bigger
than The Beatles?
Was that around about
the '60s, was it?
- Yes, the early '60s.
- [Narrator] They
hit massive success
with the Swedish version
of "Last Night I Had
The Strangest Dream",
but being a folk song,
it caused confusion among
the rock-oriented fans
and left the band divided.
Bjorn stepped in to help
Benny and the band in 1969,
as the Hep Stars' success
had started to diminish.
- We were touring the folkparks,
places that you tour in
Sweden, play during the summer,
and we just ran into each other.
- And I knew that he wrote
songs, and he knew that I wrote,
so we just, you know,
we happened to meet
and we sat down and
played a little.
I think we both thought
that the other guy was
quite, quite nice, you know?
Maybe we could,
someday in the future,
be able to work together.
- [Narrator] Benny and
Bjorn left the band in 1969,
but a friendship had blossomed
that would keep the duo working
together for years to come.
- I really find it interesting
that their coming together
was natural, it wasn't forced.
They just would
run into each other
in what was, after all,
a small national market,
an artistic community.
They would occasionally
make records together.
So Bjorn and Benny struck
first together as writers,
and then they decided
to be a quartet.
- Agnetha was a teenage prodigy.
She was the youngest
of the four,
and she had a lot of solo hits
in the Scandinavian area,
and she was a very pretty girl.
- Well, Agnetha, Agnetha.
You want me to
say it in Swedish?
Agnetha.
- Yeah.
- She was very popular as a,
she was singing romantic
songs, songs about summer,
and she break through
when she were an operator.
She worked as an operator
and break through
suddenly via a TV program,
and she was popular
for five or six years.
- [Agnetha] I
wrote my own songs.
I did six Swedish solo LPs.
(Agnetha singing in
foreign language)
- [Narrator] Bjorn
met Agnetha by 1968.
The two fell in love and
eventually tied the knot
on the 6th of July, 1971,
with Benny playing
the church organ.
Around the same time,
Benny had fallen in love
with Anni-Frid Lyngstad.
Already a successful artist,
she had won a Swedish national
talent competition in 1967
and finished fourth in the
1969 Eurovision Song contest.
- I was brought up
by my grandmother,
and she was a good lady.
She took good care of me,
though she had to work hard
to get the money to survive,
but I started to sing in dance
band when I was 13 years old,
and after two years, or one
year, I changed to a big band,
and together with them,
I sang for two years,
and after the split
up with the big band,
I started my own band,
and the name of that
band was Anni-Frid Four.
I met my husband
in the big band,
he was playing the trombone,
and we fell in love, you know?
I was quite young, but
I knew that I wanted
to be together with him,
so I got my son when
I was 17 years only,
and we got married
when I was 18,
and after four years,
I got my daughter.
(Anni-Frid singing
in foreign language)
- Frida came from a
small town in Sweden.
She came originally from Norway,
then to Sweden, a small town,
started singing there and
was popular with few songs.
Not as popular as Agnetha
in the beginning, I think.
- Her father was a Nazi
and impregnated some unfortunate
young lady in Norway.
Then she moved later to Sweden,
so they really are all
effectively, eventually Swedish,
but they didn't start that way.
- Benny and Bjorn were
recording an album on their own
with all the songs
written by them,
and for one song, they
needed a female choir,
so it was very natural
to ask Agnetha and myself
if we wanted to do that part,
and so we did, and we
thought it sounded very good.
And then we decided maybe
to try something in English,
so Benny and Bjorn wrote a
song with English lyrics,
and the title of that one
is "People Need Love",
and that's how it
started, actually.
- Benny and Frida had met
at the equivalent of
"A Song for Europe",
which was called
Musicfestivalen,
which was where
Swedish audiences
chose their Eurovision song.
So they met there, and
gradually, they got together,
and finally, in what is
of interest to ABBA fans,
at the instigation
of Stig Anderson,
they wrote a song
for Eurovision 1973,
and that was "Ring Ring".
(upbeat music)
And I sit all
alone impatiently
- [Narrator] The
band came in third,
but wasn't disheartened
by the loss.
- Well, partly, it depended on
that I thought it
was a new approach
to the Eurovision Song Contest.
It was a pop song,
and I thought,
the Eurovision Song Contest
needed something new.
- It basically really
incentivized them.
They had an English
lyric worked out for that
with Neil Sedaka and Phil Cody,
because their English
wasn't perfect yet.
Of course, then the big one was,
they thought, well,
we came in third,
or whatever it was, in the
local "Song for Europe" in '73,
why not try again?
- [Narrator] They prepared
to take a different approach
for the following
year's contest.
Growing tired of the
current name of the band,
Stig Anderson, their manager,
stumbled upon
something distinctive
that would change the
face of their brand.
- Bjorn and Benny
wanted to start
recording their own songs
which they wrote together,
and then sometimes they
needed the girls' help,
and it was natural for them
to take Agnetha, or Anna,
and Frida in the studio,
and these records from
the very beginning,
they were called Bjorn
and Benny at that time,
but, gradually, the girls
became more and more important,
and in fact, we had a very big
hit in, for instance, Japan.
The record was called
Bjorn and Benny
in spite of that the girls
really were heard on the record,
and consequently, Bjorn
and Benny came and said,
listen, we can't go on calling
ourselves Bjorn and Benny
when the public hear the girls.
- No doubt about
it, the winning song
of the 1974 Eurovision
Song Contest,
(speaking in French).
(triumphant music)
(audience applauding)
- But then we had one of the
biggest papers here in Sweden
who asked the youngsters,
what would you like
to call this group?
And of course, they
already had heard
about ABBA at that time,
so I think 90% of
them said ABBA,
and the first time we really
used it was in Brighton
when we won the Eurovision
Song Contest there
in '74, it was,
but that was the very first
time we used just ABBA.
- He knew what
Eurovision was all about,
and knew that if he could
get them to win Eurovision,
it would be the
passport to the world.
- Eurovision is a
competition set up
for all European countries
to compete to produce
the best song.
Not performance, song.
- Having failed in 1973,
they thought they'd
try again in 1974,
and this time,
they got it right.
- They were the only
one of their kind,
because we were just
coming to the end
of the singer-songwriter period,
which was sensitive ballads
by people like Carole
King, Don McLean,
Cat Stevens, Elton
John, Joni Mitchell,
and here we had four people
having a good time with
old fashioned pop music.
(cheerful jaunty music)
My my
At Waterloo, Napoleon
did surrender
Oh yeah
And I have met my destiny
in quite a similar way
- Every country
tends to have an idea
of what a Eurovision
song should be.
For example, with Germans,
and this is a generalization,
but let's just say frequently,
there was a kind of oom-pah
element in the song,
and this is why Cliff
Richard had a couple
of Eurovision songs
with an oom-pah feeling,
"Power to All Our Friends"
and "Congratulations".
Congratulations
Boom, boom.
Congratulations
And celebrations
When I tell everyone that
- "Waterloo" was a pop record.
It wasn't a Eurovision record,
wasn't a Eurovision type song,
but it was a perfect pop song,
and the winners are often
the songs that cut across.
If they get votes
from everybody,
even if they're not the
number one votes, they'll win,
and that was proof that
"Waterloo" was a song
with international appeal.
Waterloo
I was defeated,
you won the war
Waterloo
Promise to love
you forever more
- It was felt by Stig
Anderson that this was a term
that would be
universally understood
and could be a word that could
be pronounced very easily.
- It was a kind of marketing,
and, as you know, it was
a good idea, I think.
- And just to add to it,
the guy who was
conducting the orchestra
wore a Napoleonic hat.
- That's where it began, and
they wrote that classic song
which shot up the charts,
and they became possibly the
most amazingly successful group
next to The Beatles, in fact.
- It gave us a lot
of work (chuckles)
and a lot of traveling,
and a changing of my life
to be an official, if
you say that, person,
a famous person.
- When you are in a
situation like that,
you have to change a lot
in your life to be able
to take care of what's happening
to you in the right way.
- Going back to that,
these early days,
we had a very big discussion
if we should select "Waterloo"
or another song of ours
called "Hasta Manana",
and then, the last day,
we had to make a decision,
and I told Bjorn and
Benny that, "Okay,
you'll kill me, but
I take 'Waterloo',"
and I think we did right
in spite of, of course,
still, "Hasta Manana", I think,
is a good number as well.
- I didn't even think about
we would win the
Eurovision Song Contest.
At least, I didn't.
- Yes.
- I thought we
had a good chance,
because we had, we
had a different song
from all the others.
Normally, it's very, not
very many uptempo songs,
and, well, we had a
good chance, I thought.
- At that time, we had
the "Hasta Manana".
- Yes.
- Which would've been more
in line with the rest of the
songs of the competition.
- We choose between
the two numbers.
- Yeah.
- "Waterloo"
and "Hasta Manana".
- We just choose "Waterloo"
because we felt that we could
give it the most, you know?
It was ABBA.
- We picked it from, I
think we wrote 11 songs.
We had them and we said,
let's take the best one,
the one we like most,
no matter if it's suitable
for the purpose, which is,
I mean, it was, but
it shouldn't have,
compared to all the other
Eurovision festivals.
It was very outstanding.
Honey honey, how
you thrill me
A-hah, honey honey
Honey honey, nearly kill me
A-hah, honey honey
- [Journalist] Does it surprise
you that a group like ABBA,
a Swedish group, are so big
in a country that's
so, so far away?
- Really.
- Yeah?
- I think it surprises
everyone here,
but it shouldn't
be that surprising,
because they work in
an international way
and they've got an
international sound,
which I don't think any
other Swedish group has.
- [Journalist] Now, before
they became really big,
did they play a lot live
in Sweden or in Stockholm?
Did they play in any live
concerts around the country?
- Not very much, and they
haven't had the time to do it
after their breaking
through, of course.
- [Journalist] Yeah.
- There have been some
complaints of them
that they don't
play live so much,
but they don't have the time.
- They just didn't want to,
because they didn't need to.
I think it's very simple
that they were all,
they just had so much money,
they didn't really
need to tour at all.
- What ABBA did was
place themselves directly
in the mainstream of the
history of popular music,
because they loved
popular music,
they loved its development,
and as Bjorn said to me once,
"We knew we had
to sing in English
if we were gonna make
it outside of Sweden."
And then the big
record is "Mamma Mia",
and that starts this
incredible string
of number ones and top fives.
Will I ever learn
I don't know how
But I suddenly lose control
There's a fire
within my soul
Just one look and I
can hear a bell ring
One more look and
I forget everything
Whoa, oh
Mamma Mia
Here I go again
My my
- We start off with the music.
We sit down with
piano and guitar
and just, you know, play along
for hours and hours, for
days and weeks and months,
and sooner or later, eventually,
there's a song
there, and a melody.
- 'Cause at that stage,
the music, the sound of the
whole thing tells you something,
suggests a story,
so that's where the lyrics
come in, and then the vocals,
and then a few more
overdubs if needed,
and then it's mixed
down, and it's a record.
- And you can see that
Bjorn and Benny were
in their pop moment.
I mean, remember,
10 years before, they had
not been in that moment.
Bjorn was a folk singer,
Benny was a cover artist.
They were in the zone,
and it was their zone.
It was said by Orson
Welles in "Citizen Kane"
that not only was he often
in the news, he was the news,
and ABBA were not only
often in the charts,
they were the charts.
If they had a new record,
it would be number one.
The album would be number one.
Okay, this only lasted
for about five years,
but that's an
eternity in pop music.
- Songwriting is a
very interesting thing.
You use certain letters
that have power.
They're soft letters,
and you use soft letters
in construction of songs.
A song develops, it's
joyful and happy,
and then the middle
eight comes in,
boy loses girl, girl loses boy,
and then all is
joyous at the end.
Now, ABBA, I would say, are the
epitome of getting it right.
They're better than
The Beatles, you know?
Much better.
The Beatles just wrote
songs with one long chorus.
That's what they were good at,
but every song was one chorus.
They were brilliant,
just stuck them together.
ABBA origins, funny enough,
origins are more
in Tamla Motown.
His origins are
with a strong intro,
a very strong verse, a bridge
that builds really well,
and, bang, your chorus.
Out of the chorus,
into the verse,
then into your bridge section,
bang into your chorus,
and then, as I said,
into your middle eight.
Using the right words,
using the right letters,
ABBA, I think, were
the greatest at this.
Darling, can't you hear me
SOS
The love you gave me
Nothing else can save me
SOS
- [Journalist] What do
you think is the magic,
the pure magic of ABBA?
- Well, there isn't one reason,
there are several reasons.
I mentioned one-
- Yeah.
- Stig Anderson.
- His name is always coming
up, and so, you know,
I used to always kind
of watch out for ABBA,
but Anderson's name
was always there.
He was a bit more
than a manager,
and, in a way, probably was
a fifth member of the band,
and they were one of
the richest people
in the whole of Sweden,
and I'm sure that was
down to his acumen.
- Another reason is that
they represent a sort
of distinguished pop, nice pop,
like The Beatles did,
which I think is a reaction
against heavy, dirty rock music,
which only the young kids like.
In Sweden and
everywhere, the kids,
not only the kids can love
ABBA, but also their parents.
- Yeah.
- That's very important.
And, of course, it's
also well they are nice
and good looking people,
and it's the romantic story.
Two of them are married,
two are engaged.
That's a good thing
for the newspapers.
- [Journalist] Yeah.
- [Narrator] 1976 proved
to be a special year
for the members of ABBA.
The band was invited to perform
at a very special event,
debuting their new single,
an aptly named track,
"Dancing Queen".
- [Journalist] Apparently,
there's a story
that they wrote this song
for the queen of Sweden,
it's for the marriage.
When was the marriage, a couple
of months ago or something?
- Yes, it was in June,
and the first performance
of that song was the evening
before the wedding of the
king and the queen, Silvia,
and they sang that song and
played it at the opera house
at a big gala performance.
- [Journalist] In front
of the king and queen?
- Yes, the king and queen
were sitting and listening,
and ABBA had Rococo wigs,
white wigs and old clothes.
Very charming.
- Now make room for ABBA,
and music of this day.
There is absolutely
no chance for gloom
when they start
to sing and play.
You can dance
You can jive
Having the time of your life
Ooh, ooh, ooh
See that girl
Watch that scene
Diggin' the dancing queen
(uplifting cheerful music)
- Well, it's about,
it's a girl, ordinary girl,
and she only lives, actually,
when she's in the disco dancing.
- There is one funny thing
about it, I can tell you.
I think it's the
first song we wrote
when Bjorn played electric
guitar while we were writing,
because he normally
uses acoustic.
- Yes.
- And I think that's one
of the reasons why it came up,
because it's a different sound.
When you sit down with
only piano and the guitar,
nothing really happens, you
have to think in your head
about drums and
bass and all that,
and the electric
guitar made lots
of feel from the beginning.
- [Journalist]
Works really well.
Is "Dancing Queen"
one of your favorites?
- No, actually not.
It's a new one
called "That's Me".
- [Journalist] "That's Me"?
- It will come in
our next album.
- [Bjorn] I think
it's the flip side.
- [Benny] Yeah,
it's the flip side
of "Dancing Queen"
- Yes, it is, yeah.
- [Journalist] Oh no, is it?
- Don't you like it?
- Oh, no, no, no,
I'm not saying that.
I was just thinking of
flip sides, you know?
She ought to be two, a double A.
And Frida, what's
your favorite song?
- Oh, I like "Dancing
Queen" very much.
You know, I had the same
feeling as Anna told you
about before, you know,
when you freeze on a song.
That's how I felt for
"Dancing Queen", but I like,
I think the best one now
is "Money, Money, Money".
- Yeah?
- Yeah.
- [Journalist] What
about "Fernando"?
- Oh, yes.
- [Journalist] All right?
- I like, it's a very
good tune, actually,
a very good melody.
- [Journalist] Yeah.
- I think so, at least.
- She's very kind.
- No, but I like,
I like the songs.
Honestly, I do.
- [Narrator] That same year,
ABBA secured three number ones
for their singles
"Dancing Queen",
"Fernando" and
"Money, Money, Money".
By now, they knew all about
living in a rich man's world.
Money, money, money
Must be funny
In the rich man's world
- [Narrator] After earning
vast amounts of money,
fans started to become as
interested in their funds
as they were with their songs.
- We have decided long ago
to stay in this country.
As you know, Sweden is the most
high taxed country in the world,
and so we had to
invest the money
instead of just
giving it away as tax.
That's the way it started,
the whole organization,
but mainly, other people are
taking care of that for us,
so it's not really the
group ABBA making business.
It's a rich man's world
- Could be real estate,
it could be bicycles,
it could be oil.
You mention it, anything.
Financing, leasing.
We have lots of interest
in all these fields.
It's the rich man's world
(fans speaking indistinctly)
- [Narrator] 1977 saw
ABBA take to the skies,
as they flew on tour around
Europe and Australia.
The Australian leg of the tour
was the band's first major
venture outside of Europe,
and was subsequently filmed
for "ABBA: The Movie".
- From the beginning,
that was just meant
to be a documentary.
I mean, as we were on
the road in Australia,
we thought maybe we
should film it, you know,
for television, for
ourselves, actually,
to have some documents from
when we were in Australia,
but it just grew
bigger and bigger,
and all of a sudden there
was a television movie
for two hours.
- [Bjorn] With a little,
little storyline to it.
- We had a little part
in this Australian tour,
and European tour
in '77, I think,
where we wrote a little
mini-musical within the show,
"The Girl With The Golden Hair",
the two girls playing
two different sides
of the same woman.
(jarring music)
You're so free
That's what
everybody's telling me
Yet I feel I'm like
an outward-bound
Pushed around refugee
Something's wrong
- ABBA were the first artist
who realized you can't
be everywhere at once.
Tour the video, let
the video be your tour.
Sure, do some live dates, but
the video can be everywhere,
and that's why they were
early adapters to the video,
and that's why someone
like French and Saunders
could send up the
ABBA video style
and everybody would get it,
'cause everybody had
seen the ABBA videos.
I'm the first in line
Honey, I'm still free
Take a chance on me
If you need me, let me know
Gonna be around
If you got no place to go
When you're feeling down
If you're all alone
- I happened to
be, at that time,
in Boston, Massachusetts
when the album came out,
that is, "ABBA: The Album",
and I first heard
"Take A Chance On Me",
and from the very beginning,
that very catchy intro,
I just thought, oh
my God, it's a smash.
And you want to
yell out the window,
I have this new record by ABBA,
and it's going to
be a number one.
Would you like to hear it?
Those were the days when
it could be that exciting,
because everybody
didn't get the records
or accessibility to
music on the same day.
One of us is lonely
One of us is only
Waiting for a call
- So I don't know
if there is anything
more to achieve.
I mean, how will that be?
Not by selling records, not
by going on the road, I think.
Not by writing even
better songs forever.
I don't know.
I think it's sort of never
started, never ended, you know?
- I would say that what I
would like to achieve with ABBA
would be to make an
even better album,
which, by our standards and
by the audience's standards,
would be the best one.
- In my spare time,
when I don't work,
I like to journal a lot,
I like to read books,
I like to, in the
summertime, go out sailing
and water skiing.
- [Interviewer] And you, Bjorn?
- What I do in my spare time?
- Yeah.
- Play around with
the kids, read,
prowl the streets,
boating in summer.
Lots of things, normal things
that everybody does, you know?
Watching video, TV.
- Agnetha?
- Mm, the same for me.
I play a lot with the kids
and take long walks
in the wood with my big dog.
- [Interviewer]
What kind of dog?
- I have a Leonberger.
- A what?
- It's a very big one.
- I take care of my little
baby, and read a little,
listen a lot to
music, talk too much.
Under attack,
I'm being taken
- [Narrator] The
four Swedes embarked
on their invasion of America.
California-based Hollywood
star-makers the Scotti Brothers
were involved in the project,
ultimately helping
secure a guest appearance
on a nationally broadcast,
large-budget TV special
involving Olivia Newton
John and Andy Gibb.
The attempt to earn a number one
in the American
charts fell short,
as they had only reached third.
Benny and Frida finally tied
the knot in October, 1978,
but it was feared that the
glitzy group would soon end,
as Bjorn's marriage with
Agnetha had grown problematic.
By Christmas that year, the
couple had sadly divorced.
ABBA pushed on and
stuck together.
- In a sense, probably, that's
why they wrote so many hits.
The atmosphere must have been
emotionally charged
all the time,
the fact that they
were all kind of
with each other as couples,
so there must have been
an incredible tension
going on there.
That tension produced
some amazing songs
that all stand the test of time.
- The music went from pure pop
to thoughtful pop,
to thoughtful music,
and the chart position started
to sag towards the end,
and that's because it
was a kind of music
that wasn't going to be
bought by a 14-year-old.
- [Narrator] The breakup
led to a distinctive change
in the style of music,
acknowledging their
heartache in 1980 hit,
"The Winner Takes It All".
- Well, I think it's
a very good song,
very good melody and
very good lyrics,
and I think it's a whole song,
if you can understand
what I mean.
It goes in a roll, it
never stops in a way.
It goes together.
The winner takes it all
The loser standing small
Beside the victory
- The lyrics are usually
pretty personal nowadays,
and they are the combined
experiences of the four of us
with certain changes.
- And we have been working
together for 10 years.
You can't avoid things
happening in your life,
and as they do, you change
your personality as well.
And it's very natural, isn't it?
That happens to everybody.
And just because
you are a group,
that doesn't mean that we
can be outside a normal life.
- But of course, there are a lot
of things around it, you know,
that can feel a bit heavy.
Super trouper beams
are gonna blind me
But I won't feel blue
Like I always do
'Cause somewhere
in the crowd
- It was about someone who
had grown tired of fame.
Not that they disliked fame,
but it wasn't novel anymore,
it wasn't enough to sustain,
and what was going to
sustain was knowing
that you, the loved one,
was in the audience.
The super trouper beams
are gonna blind me
But I won't feel blue
Super-per, trouper-per
Like I always do
Super-per, trouper-per
'Cause somewhere in
the crowd there's you
- Now, that's the kind of
song that could only come
from the perspective of having
lived something like that.
I saw the end of
ABBA as the generator
of a string of number ones,
not because they were divorcing,
but because they were growing,
and particularly Bjorn
and Benny as writers.
With their increased
command of English,
they weren't doing songs
that had a lot of
repeated syllables.
Think for a moment of
"Ring Ring", "Honey Honey",
"I Do, I Do, I Do, I
Do, I Do", "Mamma Mia",
and then suddenly you get to
"The Day Before You Came",
and they talk about
Marilyn French, the author,
and they're writing
about abstruse thoughts,
complicated thoughts,
a interior epic like "The
Winner Takes It All",
and this is mature music,
and this is about as
mature as pop music goes.
I mean, you can
get into art song,
but when you're doing something
like the kind of material
that was on "The
Visitors" album,
that's about as
far as it can go.
And then, of course,
on the last album,
the last American hit single,
not released in Britain,
"When All is Said and Done",
well, what a perfect
title anyway,
and that line, "Not
too old for sex,"
which suggests that you're
not that young anymore.
In our lives, we have walked
Some strange
and lonely treks
Slightly worn, but dignified
And not too old for sex
- Not too old for sex,
but not teeny boppers.
- We have, in fact,
had some discussions
with Tim Rice in London
about a possible collaboration.
We don't know yet, but
I hope we'll be able
to write a musical
soon together with him.
- I remember being
in a dining club
at a reception for
Bjorn and Benny,
and I was with Tim Rice,
so I just said to Tim
while we were waiting
for Bjorn and Benny to turn up,
and I said, "Well, what
are you gonna do next?"
And he said, "Well, strangely
enough, there's some talk
of writing a musical
with Bjorn and Benny."
So Bjorn and Benny walk in,
and all the press
crowd in around them
and say, "What are
you gonna do next?
What are you gonna do next?"
And they said, "We're
going to write a musical
with Tim Rice."
And Tim said to me, "Well,
I guess I'm committed."
And of course, that
turned out to be "Chess",
which made logical sense
in the progression
of them as writers,
because since they were
now writing adult material,
why not write a musical?
- [Narrator] Benny
and Bjorn went on
to produce their
musical with Tim Rice,
premiering "Chess" in 1984,
based on the Cold War
era chess tournament
between an American
and Soviet grandmaster.
- You know, it's 30 years
since we released
the "Chess" album.
- Is it?
- In November.
It's gonna be 30 years.
- I think it was, yes, I know.
There's lots of
anniversaries this year.
Congratulations to you on yours.
- Yeah, yeah, like,
it's 40 years.
- 40 years.
- And it's 30 years,
and it's 15 years
for "Mamma Mia!".
- And it's 50 for me.
- At that time, the mid '80s,
Tim and Michael Parkinson
owned a building
on Shaftesbury Avenue,
and all of their businesses
had offices in that building.
We had our office in there,
and "Chess", the production
company of the musical,
with Judy Craymer
running the office,
was in the same building,
so we'd all run into each other.
Judy got to know Bjorn
and Benny very well,
and when "Chess" was finished,
she said, "You should have a
musical of your own songs."
And they said, "No,
there's no plot."
And she said, "Well, what
if I can convince you?"
And they said,
"Yeah, well, fine."
Anyway, she gets a
woman to write a book
that would unite their
songs and shows it to them,
and they said, "Well,
if you want to."
(chuckles) I mean, they
were never arrogant.
They never thought, oh yeah,
our songs would make
a great musical,
but they trusted Judy,
and she had this vision,
which she pulled off,
and "Mamma Mia!" became one
of the biggest show business
properties of all time,
in the same sense as
"Phantom of the Opera"
or "The Lion King".
They cross genres and
they just make oodles.
(pensive music)
ABBA made more money
off of "Mamma Mia!"
than from being ABBA.
When you consider all
of the stage shows,
the movies, the whole thing,
"Mamma Mia!" made
more money than ABBA,
and, of course, ABBA was the
second most profitable company
in Sweden when they
were at their peak.
So Judy's vision turned
into this inconceivable
moneymaking machine,
tapping on the love
that people all over
the world had for ABBA.
- [Narrator] The success of
"Mamma Mia!" the musical led
to a movie franchise of the
same name being created in 2008,
starring the likes of Pierce
Brosnan, Meryl Streep,
Colin Firth and Julie Walters.
- Unbelievable, really.
I mean, whoever thought
of that is a genius,
and it'll go on making tons of
money for a long, long time.
- I thought it was
beautifully done.
I mean, the singing
wasn't that good,
especially by Pierce Brosnan,
he can't sing a note,
but the songs were so
strong, they'd carry anyone.
That's the beauty of
their songwriting.
(pensive music)
- [Narrator] 44 years since
forming their supergroup,
ABBA's sound
crossed generations,
proving their music can
stand the test of time.
- Success requires
three factors.
Sufficient talent,
not necessarily genius
like Stevie Wonder,
but sufficient talent,
hard work, and
favorable circumstances.
Well, ABBA brought to the table
at least sufficient talent,
definitely hard work,
and they did have
favorable circumstances.
Part of that was what they
brought about themselves.
They wisely delegated
their costumes,
which they thought were
ridiculous but wore anyway
because they knew
it was of the time,
to someone who knew costumes.
They gave over the making of
the videos to Lasse Hallstrom,
who became a leading
Hollywood director.
Let the person who knows
what he's doing do it.
And Stig Anderson,
the man who founded
Polar Music Publishing
and who believed in them
and who made them write together
and made them submit
a song for Eurovision,
I say made them,
but persuaded them,
and he had a clear view
of how good they were
when they themselves could
not believe in themselves
to the extent that he could,
'cause he was older, he'd seen
more, he knew what it took.
They didn't know they
had what it takes.
200 years from now,
people will still rush
to whatever a dance floor is
the minute that the
opening glissando
on "Dancing Queen" comes on.
(pensive music)
(stirring music)
(crowd cheers)
- [Benny] Hello, London!
(upbeat music)
Summer night city
Voulez-vous
- [Reporter] Four decades
after their split,
ABBA breaks new ground
with the release of their
new concert, "Voyage",
a virtual reality
concert experience
offering fans an immersive
reunion like never before.
- Someone came to say that,
you know, you can go on the
road as holograms on tour,
and you don't even
have to be there,
and we said, yeah.
- The idea came, and we
thought it was irresistible,
because it's something
that is pushing boundaries
and something nobody
has ever seen before.
- Best hair.
- Yeah. (laughs)
- And they said '79, so we
said, okay, let's do '79.
- And we were 29.
- Yeah.
- You know, it's a bit odd,
because you can recognize
yourself in the avatar,
and at the same time,
you're sitting there
as the person you
are, watching it,
and it's a bit,
what would you say?
What expression
would be good for it?
It's a bit.
- It's weird and wonderful.
- It's weird and wonderful
at the same time.
- Yeah.
- Absolutely.
(uplifting music)
New spirit has arrived
So when you're near me
Darling, can't you hear me
SOS
When you're gone
How can I even try to go on
(crowd cheering)
- I mean, there are
life size avatars of us
alongside the musicians,
and I get the illusion,
fuck, there must be
someone up there,
they're there, you know?
Sometimes I get that
illusion completely.
- Guys, it's not very often
we see all four of you
all together as you are today.
What is it like being back,
working together on a project?
- Well, it's quite wonderful.
- We love it.
You know, it's like
going back in time
at the same time we are here
right now in the present,
and we never lost
touch with each other,
so just to be able
to go into the studio
and be creative again
together, it's a gift.
- And, final question,
when people speak to you
and interview you on the street,
are they always dropping
in lines from your songs?
Do people often do that?
- Sometimes they do.
A lot of people say
thank you for the music,
(interviewer laughs)
and it never bores me.
Does it bore you? No.
- No, it doesn't,
it doesn't bore me.
- Well, I won't say thank
you for the interview,
I'll say thank
you for the music.
(gentle serene music)