I was still pretty young when my older siblings (I can’t remember which now) bought an ABBA album. I grew up listening to it, and then just as quickly as they arrived on the scene they disappeared. By the time I was old enough to decide my own music tastes and buy albums they weren’t cool any more. (Though two of the group went on to create the musical “Chess” which causes a big stir in the 1980’s.)
One thing I remember about their music is that it often contained a story. Sometimes it was nothing more than “slice of life” vignettes like “Dancing Queen”, but sometimes there was something more deep behind it. How, for example, did a Swedish pop group come to write a song seemingly based on a Mexican Revolution, a la Fernando? I still can’t listen to that song without wishing I could get the entire story. Who are these people? What happened to their revolution? And what are their circumstances now? Inquiring minds want to know!
But we may never know, and so we’re left with a song that remains evergreen in my mind:
You are the dancing queen
Lettuce scream
Holy submarine
Dancing queen
Feel the meat on the tangerine
Oh yeah
Don’t be feeling the tangerines, man. Not cool!
I bet next you’re going to be telling me not to squeeze the charmin.
Not if Mr. Whipple’s around. And you can never be sure… He’s like a ninja!
That was me, by the way. Dad was not pleased.
Oh, you bought the album? We must’ve bootlegged a tape off it because I remember listening to a lot of ABBA but I was trying to recall how I got it. My oldest daughters all grew up with those songs.
Yup. But you started the rebellious trend with The Best of Bread. Just following in my older sister’s example.
But didn’t she wait until she moved out before getting Bachman Turner Overdrive?
I thought she had to marry Scott because he introduced her to BTO. ::snicker::
Yeah I have to plead guilty to Bread and Barry Manilow and Captain & Tennille and John Denver. I think Mom and Dad got spared my BTO and Doobies phase, but I’m sure you guys found plenty of new sounds to assail their ears with.
Hmm, I thought I bought the Bread album after hearing it in my high school history class. The funny thing was that Mom and Dad had the soundtrack record of The Graduate. I grew up listening to Simon and Garfunkel and had no idea who they were. I wonder if they win the record as a door prize when they went to see the movie like they did with the tropical fish when they saw The Incredible Mr. Limpet.
You may have bought Bread but I’m sure I listened to it as much as you did. It seems like that was the one I used to jar you awake with. I remember that Simon and Garfunkel record, but I’m as baffled as you as to how they got it. That doesn’t seem like their type of movie.
Mom and Dad went to see The Graduate?!? Are you kidding me? My whole world just caved in.
I have a feeling that they went not knowing what it was about.
Gives a whole new meaning to the word ‘education’.
Yeah, I remember hearing these songs all the time when I was a kid, especially on car trips. My mental picture of ABBA was waaaaay off from how they actually were, but that’s okay. I still break out their music now and then.