1 May 2022 5split in 1982 as “a case of finding new
incentives in my career, and also in my
private life, which was kind of daunting
because both had come to an end after
a decade. It was a very lonely process,
a lot of soul-searching.”
Nonetheless, she didn’t
hesitate when Andersson
called her five years ago
to get the band back
together and record
again for the first
time since 1982.“We know each other so well. When
we entered the studio we instantly fell
back into the group dynamic.”
“We’ve always stayed friends,”
Andersson says. “We’ve never had
any arguments about anything in the
past 40 years, I think. So that made it
quite easy. Coming into the studio
again, with everyone slipping back
into their roles, it was like time had
stood still.” Ulvaeus says that they
played the backing tracks a few times
and went through the lyrics. “Then
[Frida and Agnetha] went into the
main room, put the lyric sheets on
their stands, with the two mikes, in
front of each other, as they always
had. We wondered, ‘What will come
out?’ They started to sing. Benny and
I looked at each other. And there it
was: the ‘sound’.”
But what about the aesthetic? The
Abbatars will be wearing a succession
of newly created costumes by Dolce &
Gabbana, inspired by rather than rec-
reating the fabulously outré and
bizarre outfits the band were famous
for in the 1970s. “The white dunga-
rees are not there,” Ulvaeus says. “You
can stay calm.” “Actually,” Andersson
says, chuckling, “I think Bjorn’s worst
one was that Superman-style outfit.”
“He had those weird body stock-
ings too,” Lyngstad says. “But there
are some really over-the-top costumes
in the show too. Why not? It would
have been odd to transform our flam-
boyant side into something safe. That
wouldn’t be us, would it?”
She and Faltskog have yet to see the
show. “We’re waiting until the pre-
miere. I want to be surprised, to be
happy and sad and all of those things,
all at the same time.”
It has been a 40-year wait, but it
will be worth it to come as close as
possible to experiencing Abba live (if
not quite in the flesh), performing
some of the most perfect and imper-
ishable music of all. “Pop,” Ulvaeus
says. “Pure pop. That’s what we
strived for. Every note, every word
where it should be.” The world awaits.
To paraphrase the immortal Dancing
Queen: we will dance, we will jive. But
will we have the time of our lives? cAbba Voyage, Abba Arena, London E15,
from May 27; abbavoyage.comMamma Mia, 1975
302m streams on Spotify; 2 weeks at
No 1 in UK and 13 weeks in UK Top 40
This was the last track to be
recorded for the Abba album. Not
much is remembered about writing
it, but they do know they were in the
library of Ulvaeus and Faltskog’s
home just outside Stockholm.Knowing Me, Knowing You, 1977
101m streams on Spotify; 5 weeks at
No 1 in UK, 12 weeks in UK Top 40
This hit may have been written
before their break-ups, but the song
is about a broken marriage. It
became a theme tune for Steve
Coogan’s Alan Partridge.Our Last Summer, 1980
27m streams on Spotify
Ulvaeus found inspiration for this
song in a memory of a romance he
had in Paris as a teenager.The Winner Takes It All, 1980
243m streams on Spotify; 2 weeks at
No 1 in UK; 8 weeks in UK Top 40
Ulvaeus denies the theory that this
song is about his and Agnetha’s
divorce, saying the basis of the song
“is the experience of a divorce, but
it’s fiction”.Dancing Queen, 1976
702m streams on Spotify; 6 weeks at
No 1 in UK, 15 weeks in UK Top 40
When Lyngstad first heard this
she cried “out of pure happiness
that I would get to sing that song”.
Ian McKellen and Theresa May
both picked it as one of their
Desert Island Discs. The actor says
he has danced to it more than any
other song.Jake HelmBJORN’S TOP FIVE ABBA
SONGSAh, emotions. I was at a wedding
last weekend, and to watch a multi-
generational crowd lose the plot when
the introductory glissando heralded
the arrival of Dancing Queen was to be
reminded of just how ruthlessly effec-
tive Abba’s songs are at negotiating our
neural pathways and penetrating our
hearts and minds. Forests have been
felled by scientists in their attempts to
explain this.
Folk memory, emotion, repetition
and communicative directness are
known to trigger various hormonal
shifts in our brains: a happy song
induces a rush of dopamine, a sad one
an infusion of prolactin. Abba manage
to do both at once; the sweet and sour,
the addictive salted caramel of music.
They have made their way into Brit-
ish politics too. When a party allegedly
took place at the prime minister’s
Downing Street flat last November, on
the night of Dominic Cummings’s
defenestration, guests reportedly
danced the night away to The Winner
Takes It All by Abba (an odd choice of
song, given that it is about a break-up).
Carrie Johnson, born in 1988, six years
after Abba stopped performing
together, loves the band.
Andersson’s eyes twinkle with mis-
chief. “The media was calling it an Abba
party. How could it have been? We
weren’t even there. But anyone can
play our music whenever they want to.
What can we do? It takes all kinds.”
Agnetha Faltskog, 72, who scarcely
ever talks to the press and
declined to take part in this
interview, once remarked,
when asked what it was like to
be on top of the world: “The
air is cold up there.”
Lyngstad acknowledges that
she got the easier ride.
“Agnetha had a lot of focus
on her as the blonde, the
angelic one with the beauti-
ful behind. I was a bit in the
shadow of that. But also I
had the ability to lead a pri-
vate life alongside my pro-
fessional one. I’m not easily
impressed by the glamour
side of fame.”
Faltskog’s reaction to fame,
especially after her divorce from
Ulvaeus, with whom she has two
children, led some to label her,
inaccurately, as reclusive. She
lives in Sweden, as do Anders-
son and Ulvaeus. Lyngstad,
who rejoices in the title Prin-
cess Anni-Frid Reuss, Dow-
ager Countess of Plauen,
lives in Switzerland with
her partner, Viscount Ham-
bleden (a descendent of the
family that founded WH
Smith).
Lyngstad describes the
period after Abba’s unofficialodd. Not in the studio, which was our
second home, but going on tour,
where we were more or less prisoners
in our hotel.” No wonder the idea of
Abbatars appealed.
Abba Voyage is a venture into the
unknown. It could be a game-changer,
or a disaster, but given the band’s
enduring global popularity who’d bet
against them? The songs Abba
released between their victory at the
1974 Eurovision Song Contest with
Waterloo and their unofficial split in
1982 still soundtrack the lives of mil-
lions. With the exception of the Bea-
tles, it’s arguable that no band’s back
catalogue has burrowed quite so dog-
gedly beneath the collective skin. And
last year, after decades spent dismiss-
ing talk of a reunion, the band added
to that catalogue with Voyage, their
first album since The Visitors in 1982.
Full of harmonies and chord progres-
sions that might have come from their
heyday, it topped the charts in 17
countries, including Britain.
“The financial risk is not really only
ours; there are other investors,”
Andersson says. “Artistically, though,
what are the risks? What are the pos-
sible criticisms? ‘Well, the band
aren’t really there, are they?’
That’s the whole point. Will
people accept that? Will
they enjoy the environ-
ment, the great sound
system? Above all it needs
to involve emotions,
and to me it does.”
Take a chance
on them Benny,
Agnetha, Anni-Frid
and BjornMAIN IMAGES: ©ABBA VOYAGE. INSET: BAILLIE WALSHFirst look
This is how
Abba will
appear on stage:
outfits by Dolce
& Gabbana;
bodies by
George Lucas’s
special effects
company