Song 42: Dancing Queen

Dancing Queen - ABBA

My last post was rather lacklustre, I feel, and failed to do justice to The Carpenters and the song, but I'm rather making myself a hostage to fortune by again writing about a 70s MOR band. And I'm going to be a little mean, because I'm going to use writing about 'Dancing Queen', which I do like, to talk about why I don't really like ABBA.

It's quite hard to slot ABBA into my musical chronology - they're one of the most successful bands of all time, of course, and their music was certainly "always there". I remember my sisters and my sisters' friends liking them and also their songs, like 'Super Trouper' being in our Learn to Play the Piano book. But they'd split up by the time I was aware of anything, so might as well have been The Beatles or Elvis.

They seemed intrinsically tied up with Eurovision, which I was of course a big fan of, and then they got a bit of a lift from Erasure and then Alan Partridge. I think I always knew they were naff. I don't think anyone could fail to know that.

But there seemed to be consistent efforts to justify them, to say that they weren't naff, that they were songwriting geniuses for one thing, that there was also real poignancy and power in some of their lyrics. Which I was never persuaded by.

Perhaps it was watching some TV show about them which showed Benny and Bjorn at work, but I hear the formula in almost every song they write. No doubt all the great writers use formulas and standard tricks, but to me with ABBA it's so transparent. And though they might have written great English lyrics for Swedish people, I don't think they were lyrically that hot - again, the rhyming dictionary is right there.

But the main thing  is exactly what I did find in the Carpenters, this richly humane, affecting voice, which I just never got from ABBA's two lead vocalists - all too perfect, too flawless, almost harsh. Whether that was a production choice or just what they sound like I don't know.

Do Benny and Bjorn deserve to be seen as a great songwriting team like Bacharach and David or even (and this is not a band I'm a fan of) the Gibbs? Well, I don't hear the emotional or musical range, I don't hear daring or imagination, sorry.

But I do love 'Dancing Queen'. I think I always have. I don't necessarily think it steps outside the ABBA formula, perhaps it's the apotheosis of what they do and a guy like me can only really love one ABBA song, so I went for the best.

I think I've encountered it in a pleasing way at various times - i have the dimmest memory of dancing madly to it as a kid, then a dim memory of it soundtracking a TV drama I liked, and a dim (in a different way) memory of myself and Alexander Key dancing to it free from inhibition in the front hall of our Hall of Residence ball at 3 in the morning. Perhaps it is its link to that unusual moment of freedom (back then I was pertrified of dancing or making a show of myself in any way) that makes me think so fondly of it, but also I'm pretty confident it is the best tune ABBA have, the most exciting, gleeful track in their armoury.

I feel a bit bad really - what have ABBA ever done to me, but I'm just a little cold on their genius. You can't deny all the joy they've brought people. I even made a bit of an effort once, bought ABBA Gold, but it's gone largely unplayed. It strikes me, looking at it now, that it's the song titles above all that bother me - they're so hooky, with silly little rhymes and repetitions, you know what you're going to get before you hear it. I do think I've hit on something there - I think I like the ABBA songs which don't have silly names - The Winner Takes it All and I Have a Dream and, above all, Dancing Queen.