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There are not many ABBA songs that I don’t like, but this one has to be one of the worst Benny and Bjorn ever conjured up and the fact that they subjected Frida and Agnetha to actually recording the vocals for it, must have been sheer torture for the two of them.

There have been a few other recordings along the way that I never particularly liked, mainly during ABBA’s active recording years and because I always knew there would be newer and better songs to like in the future. As far as I was concerned, growing up and listening to ABBA in the 1970’s, they were simply never going to end. But, they did and so some of the songs I never really liked, I began to re-discover and these have now become some of my personal favourites, one in particular being, ‘I Wonder (Departure)’, I could never stand it, and now I love it! When ABBA were no longer, I had no option, if I was going to remain an ABBA fan, I had to re-discover their catalogue and I’m still doing it today.

I’m not scared to admit that most of the ABBA songs that I did not like at the time were mainly Frida recordings. I was always the Agnetha fan and over the years and in re-discovering the catalogue this has changed and now I’m in awe of both women. I now find myself identifying Frida parts of a recording whereas in the past it would be Agnetha’s parts. It’s funny how your views and interpretations change over the years.

However, with all this in mind, ‘I Have A Dream’, is one of those tracks that seemed, and still does, out of place for the time that ABBA found themselves in, in 1979. ‘Voulez Vous’ was ABBA’s disco album and a mighty fine one at that, except for the inclusion of ‘I Have A Dream’.

Every time I hear the introduction to this song, I literally want to scream, in fact I call it ‘I Want to Scream’, and I’m sure I could put some lyrics to that effect on a piece of paper with a razor blade next to me. It really is one of those wrist slitters. I cannot get through the first verse let alone to the chorus, and any CD that it is on, the track gets skipped, along with a few other ABBA horrors. The same applies to any DVD, be it a concert or watching the video clip itself, I have to skip it. There is one version of the song I can nearly stomach though, and I’ll get to that later.

‘Summer Night City’ would have been a much better inclusion on the ‘Voulez Vous’ album than ‘I Have A Dream’. ‘Summer Night City’ is well done by ABBA live on stage, much more so than ‘I Have A Dream’, which is positively anal live.

If Benny and Bjorn felt that ‘Summer Night City’ was not what they wanted in 1978, then I shudder to think where their minds were with ‘I Have A Dream’ in 1979, and to think that ‘I Have A Dream’ was even a single release at the end of 1979, makes shivers run down my spine. It even reached number 3 on our South African charts, which I don’t remember and I don’t even recall it being a single, maybe it’s because I never cared for the song, and more than likely never will, no matter how old I get or try and re-discover ABBA’s catalogue even further!

When you think about it, and with an impending World Tour coming up, they created more stress and work for themselves with ‘I Have A Dream’. Can you think of the logistics behind organizing a choir of school kids during a rehearsal session and then getting them to sing along with you whilst on tour, and get it right night after night, sometimes in a different city? All this for a horrible song, no thank you. But then I suppose 1979 was ‘The Year Of The Child’ and ABBA obviously felt compelled to include children somewhere on their next album especially after being part of UNICEF in January.

In my opinion, the inclusion of ‘I Have A Dream’ on the ‘Voulez Vous’ album, does not let the first side of the album flow. The vibrant and zesty ‘As Good As New’ gives a taste of what’s to come before leading on to the Disco stomping ‘Voulez Vous’ and then a complete deflator with ‘I Have A Dream’, leaving ‘Angeleyes’ with it’s zestful choruses and the timeless ‘The King Has Lost It’s Crown’ to pick up the pieces destroyed by track number 3! At least side 2 of the ‘Voulez Vous’ album was not a let down and even ‘Chiquitita’ seemed in place where it was.

I know ‘Chiquitita’ gave ABBA a good foot in the door in the South American market hence it being re-recorded in Spanish and of course it was natural to follow on with a couple of other tracks and the resultant ‘Gracias Por La Musica’ album, with the equally successful ‘Estoy Sonando’, the Spanish version of ‘I Have A Dream’, included on the album.

Once I’ve skipped the guitar introduction or gritted my teeth through it, ‘Estoy Sonando’ I can manage to listen to and even force myself to watch the video clip. Somehow it’s sounds softer and not as over produced as ‘I Have A Dream’. I also stand to correction, but I’m sure it’s just Agnetha and Frida singing the chorus, no choir.

I know, like in any industry, one always strives to improve on what you last did and let’s face it, ABBA had set a very high standard so early on in their careers, especially with their albums, ‘Arrival’ and ‘The Album’, as incomplete or rushed many think the latter may be. Both these albums were hugely successful and so the standard for ‘Voulez Vous’ had to be on a par and if not better than the previous two albums. There was also Agnetha and Bjorn’s divorce thrown in for good measure.

There is no doubt ABBA had an extremely difficult time providing us with the ‘Voulez Vous’ album, pressure from the public and the music industry must have been huge at the time, and not to mention the pressures they had to endure in their personal capacities, but to include a banal track like ‘I Have A Dream’ on such a fine album is an utter waste of space.

Yes, it’s nice to know that 7 of the tracks on the ‘Voulez Vous’ album ended up on singles as either an A or a B side and the live version of ‘I Have A Dream’ reached number 2 on the UK Charts in December 1979, but it is still a hideous song and quite frankly is on a par with the likes of ‘I Saw It In The Mirror’ and ‘Man In The Middle’ as well as a few others that are not worth mentioning.

I have no doubt there will be a lot of people who will agree with me and many who won’t and I’m also aware that what Benny and Bjorn wrote and what ABBA provided us with, was the best they could at the time.

I always thought that ABBA had left Schlager behind in 1976 with ‘I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do’, but it appears that even in the late 1970’s, it reared it’s head again where ABBA were concerned with ‘I Have A Dream’.

The result is not a very pleasant one, well not for me anyway, which was not the case in many territories where it was a hit and obviously made an impression on so many people, but not where this ABBA fan is concerned.

Neil