You’re welcome Laila, and glad to see you’re taking advantage of our new feature (only on ABBAMAIL!).

First question: Yes indeed, that is Björn talking his way through the first verse of ‘Move On’, putting on a quite thick and deep “American” accent. It has been said that Björn was just “fooling around” when this verse was recorded, and it was intended that the verse would actually be sung (as it was on the Spanish version ‘Al Andar’), but ABBA liked the effect and decided to keep it. Whether that story is true or not is anyone’s guess.

Second question: I really have no idea what languages the ABBA members can speak (aside from English and Swedish, of course). There are many recorded interviews with Björn speaking German, and he apparently “excelled” at languages in school. When ABBA were recording their songs in other languages (especially Spanish), they had grammar coaches to help them with the pronunciation. I have read of Frida learning other languages, notably German after she met her father in 1977, but I have no idea how proficient she became in the language. I have no idea whether Agnetha knew any German when she recorded several singles in that language in the late 60s, or whether she was coached.

What a coincidence! This very week Who Weekly in Australia reports that Benny will be releasing “a new folk music album” later this year. Other reports say that it will be released “in a few weeks”. But I haven’t heard any firm date as yet.

Hi, could you tell me if it is possible to buy any copies of ‘The Dick Cavett Show’, in which ABBA appeared. Sadly, I am too young to have seen the original version, and would like to know if an actual copy is for sale anywhere.

Secondly, I read a reply about the ‘Opus 10’ album, but the link to 'I'm Still Alive' does not seem to work. I was wondering if I could download this song from anywhere else on the web, maybe even the version by Kiki Moberg (is that right?) Thanks!! Charlotte Gerrish

The TV special ‘Dick Cavett Meets ABBA’ has never officially been released on video, but it has circulated around the fan community for many years. You can buy the special from ABBAMAIL's merchandise service.

Off the top of my head, I don’t know of anywhere where ‘I’m Still Alive’ could be downloaded. It was included on the bootleg CD ‘Live! At Last’ (and many others), which unfortunately is currently unavailable.

Since around 1999, the “official” sales figure quoted is 350 million records. Before that it was around 250 million, sometimes up to 300 million. Apparently Universal Music in Sweden is currently investigating to try and calculate a more accurate figure.

‘Fernando’ was still recorded as the biggest selling single in Australia as late as the 1996 Guinness Book Of Records (the last year that I can recall that they had an Australian supplement at the back of the book). An RCA advertisement published in Billboard magazine in early 1977 proclaimed that ‘Fernando’ had sold 400,000 copies. However, I believe that Elton John’s ‘Candle In The Wind 99’ single has outsold it. That same edition of The Guinness Book of Records stated that ‘The Best Of ABBA’ was still the biggest selling album in Australia, with 1.1 million copies sold, though other figures have said it was as many as 1.25 million. A few years ago, there were press reports that new figures had come to light saying that the ‘Grease’ soundtrack album had sold 2 million copies in Australia, but it turned out that this was double counting –each double album unit had been counted as 2 sales, not 1. Sadly, RCA no longer have their sales information from the 70s, so those sales figures seem to be lost forever.

Years ago, a friend sent me a copy of Elvis Costello's 1982 song, ‘Imperial Bedroom’, and mentioned it was a tribute to Agnetha. The lyrics are rather curious, and there's a chant at the end that sounds like the group's name being repeated. Do you have any background on this song and its possible ABBA/Agnetha connection? Louise

**here's one site with the lyrics: http://www.elvis-costello.com/homepage
/lyrics/ib.html#imperial_bedroom

All I really know about this song is that apparently Elvis recorded it as a tribute to Agnetha (in fact, I’ve never actually heard it). As far as I’m aware, there was no particular connection or contact between Elvis and Agnetha or any other ABBA members at that time. However, on one of his tours during the 80s Elvis had a ‘request wheel’, which would be spun and the band would perform whatever song came up. Included in the song selections was ABBA’s ‘The Name Of The Game’, which was performed at several concerts. I’ve also heard that a live recording was a B-side to one of his singles, but I couldn’t tell you which one. I’ve also read in interviews that he used to perform ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’ on occasion. Additionally, he has admitted that he “ripped off” ‘Dancing Queen’ in his hit ‘Oliver’s Army’ (notice the rather obvious piano riff!). More recently (this year, in fact) Elvis produced an album for Swedish classical singer Anne Sofie von Otter, which includes a cover of ‘Like An Angel Passing Through My Room’. Benny played piano and co-produced the recording. You can hear a snippet of that recording at http://www.forthestars.net/. In several interviews he has said that he was “quite a fan” of ABBA’s music.

I am wanting to know who published the ‘ABBA to Mama-Mia’ book as we are unable to get it off the shelf in New Zealand and I would like to buy it for my husband for his birthday in July. Thank You, Sharyn Duke

Hi there, I was wondering the price of each book: The Abba Phenomenon, Abba By Abba - Christopher Borg, Abba - Harry Edington, Abba For The Record, Abba The Complete Story- John Tobler, Abba - Nina Rasummesen, Abba The Complete Recording Sessions and of course the price of the National ads. Are these for sale? I live in Melbourne Australia. Please get back Nicoletta

 Most of those books were of course published in the 1970s, and have long been out of print. As you’re in Melbourne, I’d recommend going to Chapel Street Bazaar or Just Collectibles in Chapel Street, Prahran – the two shops are almost directly across the street from each other. On past visits I’ve seen quite a bit of original 70s ABBA memorabilia on sale in both, including several books and magazines. Alternately, try on-line auction sites like eBay (www.eBay.com), Yahoo! Auctions (http://auctions.yahoo.com/), the auction section of Amazon.com, and the like. They regularly have many of these books listed, especially latter day ones such as ‘ABBA – The Complete Recording Sessions’, ‘ABBA Gold – The Complete Story’ (which is an updated version of ‘ABBA For The Record’) and the Nina Rasmussen book (which has also been available with an ABBA interview CD). Occasionally the older ones have been seen listed too. As for prices, I’ve seen some of these books go for as low as US$10 or as high as US$100.

The National commercials have never been released. In fact, there were plans to include one on the video ‘Essential Stockholm’ until Björn and Benny vetoed it. They have been on tapes traded (or even sold) between fans. There were originally five different TV commercials made featuring ABBA, and in later ads the ABBA soundtrack was used over non-ABBA footage. You can read more about the National advertising campaign in The ABBA Phenomenon in Australia website (http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Studio/5073/).

“My question”? Try 3, you cheeky thing! Anyway, to answer the first question: I’m really not sure when ‘Gulligullan’ was recorded - I only recently heard of this jingle myself. All that I do know is that both girl’s versions were recorded in the same year, but I don’t know what year that was. My friend ABBAMAILer Filip from Denmark writes with more information: "In your column you ask about 'Gulli-Gullan' with Frida. It was broadcast 25th September 1981 on Sveriges Radio in a program called 'Draget'." Thanks for the update, Filip!

Second question: the Bosse Parnvik album ‘Telefonlur’ was released in 1979. The cover can be seen on the excellent Frida Alone site (http://members.nbci.com/alltid/frida/). I don’t know when the “prank” was actually recorded however.

Third question: the oft-reported unreleased songs and demos from ‘Shine’ are nowhere to be found that I know of – no bootlegs, no audio files on the net, nothing. There are unconfirmed rumours that some fans have copies of these songs but are keeping them close to their chests.