Posted on 04/06/2014 1:46:30 AM PDT by JoeProBono
It is 40 years since Abba won the Eurovision Song Contest in Brighton - a victory that started their meteoric rise to super group status with millions of fans around the globe.
When the four-piece stepped on to the stage accompanied by a man dressed as Napoleon to deliver their country's entry for the competition, they were virtually unknown.
The audience at the 1,700-seat Brighton Dome on 6 April, 1974, had no idea how huge the Swedish group, which performed Waterloo, would become. Most of them were concentrating on the UK entry - Olivia Newton John with her song Long Live Love.
John Henty, who lives in Lewes, East Sussex, was one of those watching and describes the instant impact the band had on the crowd.
He said: "Nobody knew Abba. Who were Abba? They were an unknown quantity.
"But clearly the moment they went into the number and the style of it and the outrageous costumes and the guy wearing Napoleon gear and you suddenly thought, 'this is something'."
I don’t know how it’s possible, but here’s one I’d never heard before I happened across “ABBA, The Movie”. It’s not been often that I fell in love with a song the first time I heard it, but I did with this one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dcbw4IEY5w
It wasn’t “cool” in my circle to like pop stuff like ABBA when I was young, but now I’m old and I don’t care.
Like Agnetha asked, “what would life be? Without a song or a dance, what are we? So I say thank you for the music, for giving it to me.”
My daughter looked a lot like the little blonde girl the camera focuses on beginning at about 2:10 of the video at that age, and every time I see the joy on her face, it reminds me of her when she was still a child. If for no other reason, this song will always be among my favorites.
So I say, ABBA, thank you for the music.
Their music still holds up well today.
“The music from that show is remarkably pretty.”
I love, “Bangkok” and “I Know Him So Well”. Great album. Never saw the play.
Frida or Agnetha?
Put me in the Frida camp.
Frida actually isn’t Swedish, she’s half-Norwegian half-German. Her father was a Wehrmacht soldier serving in Norway during the war....They had to flee to Sweden, because obviously “collaborators” weren’t going to be treated very well in Norway after the war.
Frida had a hit in the 80s with “I Know There’s Something Going On”, which featured the unmistakable drumming of Phil Collins.
I think Phil Collins either sang or drummed on at least half of the Top 40 songs from 1980 to 1985.
I Know Him So Well is my favorite. Judy Kuhn sings on the B’way album.
Oops! I Know Him So Well, of course, is a duet. I forget the other singer’s name.
I went to the Abba museum in Stockholm last summer. It was a great 3 hour escape from reality. Sweden in the 1970s—that’s where I want to live.
LOL, that’s true.
I remember during the mid-80s, there were Genesis-related acts all in the Top 40 at the same time
Peter Gabriel
Mike and the Mechanics
Phil Collins
GTR with Steve Hackett even had a hit with “When the Heart Rules the Mind”
If it wasn’t for the platform shoes and bell bottoms I might agree...Of course since it was us that unleashed that insanity on them we should go there and offer profuse apologies ;)
I served in the US Army during 69-70 in Germany, and when ABBA hit the scene in America I recognized it as what I called “Euro-Pop.”
In retrospect it was also along the lines of the coming Disco era.
My little brother was stationed at the Gutleut Kaserne, Frankfurt in ‘69. I was in the USAF stationed in Libya and visited him there - which has nothing to do with ABBA ;-{)
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