‘People Need Love’ is a plea for harmony between the sexes, saying that love will bring people together – a common theme for light pop music in the early 1970s.

‘Nina, Pretty Ballerina’ is the story of a plain office worker who goes out dancing on Friday nights, transforming from plain Jane to a dancing diva.

On the 1977 tour, Björn often introduced this song saying that it was the true story of a musician they knew, who climbed up a palmtree in the West Indies, and would not come down until his girlfriend came and told him that she loved him.

‘King Kong Song’ is inspired by the 1933 classic film ‘King Kong’, about a giant ape that is taken from his native island to New York, where he escapes and climbs to the top of the Empire State Building (carrying a screaming Fay Wray), ultimately to be shot down – a scene engrained forever in movie history. The film was remade in 1976, and the song briefly appeared on the singles chart in Australia in early 1977, where it had been released on the B side of ‘I’ve Been Waiting For You’ in 1974.

‘What About Livingstone’ is the story of the song’s narrator overhearing a group of men ridiculing the idea of men going to the moon (then topical, with the last moon landing in 1973), and her response that explorers of the past, such as David Livingstone who explored central Africa in the 19th century, were no different.

‘Man In The Middle’ is the story of ordinary working folk making fun of a rich “fat cat” they see driving past in his limousine.

‘Fernando’ is not based on any particular war, though the Spanish feel and reference to the Rio Grande seem to place it in Mexico. Björn has said that he ‘got this strong vision in my head of two old revolutionaries in Mexico, sitting outdoors one night, reminiscing”.

‘Dancing Queen’ is the simple story of a girl who is the “queen of the dance floor”, much like 1973’s ‘Nina, Pretty Ballerina’. Because the song was debuted at the gala concert the night before the wedding of Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf and Silvia Sommerlath (Queen Silvia upon their marriage), it has often been thought that the song was written as a tribute to her, disregarding the fact that she was 33 at the time, not “young and sweet/only seventeen”.

Björn has said that he “saw a man walking through an empty house for the last time as a symbol of divorce”, though at the time, none of the ABBA couples had separated.

‘Eagle’ was inspired by the novel ‘Jonathon Livingstone Seagull’ by Richard Bach. Björn said he “was trying to capture the sense of freedom and euphoria” he got from reading the book. Often wrongly thought of as a tribute to the American country-rock group The Eagles.

Björn has said that ‘The Name Of The Game’ is about a woman falling in love with her psychiatrist, though not necessarily Agnetha. The lyric was apparently written at the request of Lasse Hallström, specifically for the dream sequence in ‘ABBA – The Movie’.

The names mentioned in ‘Hole In Your Soul’ are based on real people – Jerry is Jerry Greenberg, then head of Atlantic Records, who released ABBA’s records in North America; Sam was a real chauffeur and Annie was Jerry Goldberg’s secretary.

ABBA’s mini-musical, first performed as the climax of the concerts on the European and Australian tour in 1977. The story of a small-town girl who dreams of becoming a famous singer, who leaves her hometown for the big city and fame, only to feel trapped and pushed around, with no control of her life.

In concert, the mini-musical included four songs: ‘Thank You For The Music’, ‘I Wonder (Departure), ‘I’m A Marionette’ and ‘Get On The Carousel’, with linking music and narration between the songs telling the story.

Thank You For The Music

I Wonder (Departure)

I’m A Marionette

Get On The Carousel

‘I Am An A’ was a tongue-in-cheek pseudo-autobiographical song to introduce the four members of the group performed in the concerts of the 1977 tour or Europe and Australia. Never recorded in the studio or released in any form. Parts of the chorus were later used in ‘Free As A Bumble Bee’ in 1978 (itself not released until 1994 on the box set ‘Thank You For The Music’), and finally ‘I Know Him So Well’, the musical by Benny, Björn and British lyricist Tim Rice.

‘Chiquitita’ is a Spanish word that means “little girl”. Though not necessarily written for the event, the song was the perfect inclusion at the UNICEF concert “A Gift Of Song” at the United Nations building in New York in January 1979, for the International Year of the Child.

‘Lovers (Live A Little Longer)’ was inspired by a newspaper article Björn read with the headline “Lovers Live Longer”.

A ‘super trouper’ is a giant spotlight used at stadium concerts.

The lyrics were loosely inspired by Björn and Agnetha’s break-up, reputedly written by Björn in around an hour after he’d opened up a bottle of whiskey. But as he said “there were no winners in our divorce”.

Björn has said of ‘Our Last Summer’ that he was reminiscing about a romance in Paris in his younger years, “a melancholy memory of ‘the last summer of innocence’”, a theme he’d earlier covered in ‘Monsieur, Monsieur’, an early (and unreleased) version of ‘My Love, My Life’ from the 1976 album ‘Arrival’.

‘The Piper’ was inspired by the Stephen King novel ‘The Stand’, about a Hitler-style leader and “the fear that there will come a time when people will want such a leader again”, as Bjorn has said.

‘The Visitors’ reflects the situation for dissidents in the Soviet Union at that time. He has said that he “was trying to imagine what it must feel like to sit and wait for that ominous knock on the door,, never knowing when it would come, and never being able to be sure of anything”.

‘When All Is Said And Done’ is coloured by Benny and Frida’s then-recent separation. Frida said that “all my sadness was captured in that song”.

‘Soldiers’ is about the fear of war, about the warmongers who force war on the populace, whether it’s justified or not. Especially topical at the time, with the recent USSR invasion of Afghanistan, and the ongoing Cold War between east and west.

‘Two For The Price Of One’ is the story of a man answering an ad in the personal columns, finding that the offer is from a girl and her mother (though it’s not specific whether the mother is a chaperone, or joining in for a threesome).

‘Slipping Through My Fingers’ was inspired by Björn’s watching his and Agnetha’s then 7-year-old daughter Linda walking off to school, and his feelings of missing out on so much of her life so far.

‘Cassandra’ is based on the Greek myth of Cassandra, daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy. Cassandra was given the gift of prophesy by the god Apollo, but after she spurned his advances she was cursed that no one would believe her prophesies.

All quotes from ‘ABBA – The Complete Recording Sessions’ by Carl Magnus Palm.
Page prepared by ABBAMAILer an Cole