With ABBA’s return, I though it an ideal time to post this poem that was included in my first collection, Heading North, published by Nordland Publishing.
I’d written it whilst sat up one late Autumn night, listening to an early Agnetha Fältskog song, composed in her native tongue when she was just sixteen. A downpour occurring just beyond the limits of that darkened room contributed to the general mood: she was singing of a doomed love affair; I was thinking of other times.
You guys have heard me say it before: I’m a creature of nostalgia. That’s nothing new. (Literally.)
I’ve often thought, without having a death wish, that, of the gang I used to hang with in my youth, I hope I’m not one of the last to go as I don’t think my heart could take the sentimental overload.
I was born in ‘71, which means that in three months time I’ll be fifty. I’m sharing that half a century milestone this year with some of my favourite albums: The Doors’ La Woman, Lennon’s Imagine, and the Stones’ Sticky Fingers, among others. Music that I’ve connected with and taken with me across the decades.
Last night I watched the reveal about the quite astonishing return, after all this time, of ABBA, unveiling not only a whole new album (Voyage) and two songs from it, but also a concert that is being planned in London with the aid of technology.
ABBAtars, no less.
I saw this photograph of the four Swedes dressed up in the outfits that they wore to help create these new altar egos. They look like something out of the 80’s science fiction movie Tron.
Experiencing the two new songs from this first album in forty years transported me right back in time to the first family home that we all shared back then. I’d only be about five years old, my brother eighteen months younger. My folks had a cassette player on the wall unit by the door, with an early ABBA compilation album primed to play. My Mum introduced us: “Ladies and gentlemen, let’s hear it for . . . ‘THE MURRAY BROTHERS!’” We’d both be playing drums on an upturned bin and a biscuit tin respectively, while we sang along.
That was, of course, the seventies, the hazy, intangible seventies, where my affected memory always reconstructs those times in the brightest and gaudiest of colours.
My Dad is no longer with us, and my Mum no longer remembers ABBA (Alzheimer’s), but those happy days (and that group in particular) is something I’ve brought along with me to this very day. And that connection has been reinforced by listening to this new material.
Both songs (maybe more so because of the lens that I experience them through) are rich in sentiment. The first one, I Still Have Faith In You, is a ballad sung by Frida, about the special relationship shared by all four group members. I thought that this one was just okay, maybe a grower, the emotion of it coming more from the accompanying video that shows the four of them in their prime, until replaced by the ABBAtars that appear towards the end.
But it was the Agnetha-led second song, Don’t Shut Me Down, that cranked up the feels a notch. I wasn’t expecting the emotional punch that took me right back to my crude beginnings.
It sounds like classic ABBA, recognisable ABBA, and when Frida joins in it demonstrates that, no matter their age, when those two singers combine those two voices, magic is created.
It’s a magic sorely needed in our world, a magic capable of time travel.
And like all true nostalgists, I see hidden meaning and significance in everything. Making it relatable and personal, I excitedly informed my wife:
“Jen – ABBA have got back together for my 50th!”
Happy Birthday to me.
Speaking of Time: posted three years ago.
Time, please be gentle.
A while ago, on Facebook, I stumbled across this photograph of my old Swedish friend Agnetha Fältskog, taken from the first Abba Greatest Hits album of 1975. If you look closely, you will see that inserted into her hand is a copy of her last solo album, A, released in 2013. Both albums, both images, separated by thirty-eight years, stand, in a way, like chronological bookends of a linear journey. Of her linear journey, along that particular period of her life. In between, of course, much has changed. For better, or for worse. Such is life.
I like to think that the photoshopping artist, whoever he or she may be, has, like I, a penchant for both history and continuity, similarly casting an appreciative eye over the progressive journey, yet, also, being cut to the quick by the unstoppable, winnowing effect of time itself.
There is a song on Agnetha’s…
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You guys may know, from previous posts, that when growing up, Abba’s Agnetha Fältskog was the first to capture my juvenile heart. If I was to tell you that I still like her now, you must understand that I am speaking of her voice only, tinged with a certain nostalgic sentiment. We have both aged somewhat since back then. And my wife reads my posts.
Anyway, last night, I was scrolling through my Facebook feed, my nosey eight-year old daughter looking over my shoulder. Someone had shared the news that the country singer Lynn Anderson had died, and Millie wanted me to play the accompanying YouTube video of Rose Garden. When it had finished, the links to four other songs appeared on the screen. One was The Winner Takes It All, showing a young Agnetha.
Millie, all wide-eyed: “Has Agnetha died too?”
Me:“Oh God, no.”
Millie:“If she did die, would you be upset? Would you cry?”
Me:“Ask your Mum if she thinks that I would cry.”
Millie (whispering conspiratorially):“If you did cry, she wouldn’t pass you a tissue.”
A while ago, on Facebook, I stumbled across this photograph of my old Swedish friend Agnetha Fältskog, taken from the first Abba Greatest Hits album of 1975. If you look closely, you will see that inserted into her hand is a copy of her last solo album, A, released in 2013. Both albums, both images, separated by thirty-eight years, stand, in a way, like chronological bookends of a linear journey. Of her linear journey, along that particular period of her life. In between, of course, much has changed. For better, or for worse. Such is life.
I like to think that the photoshopping artist, whoever he or she may be, has, like I, a penchant for both history and continuity, similarly casting an appreciative eye over the progressive journey, yet, also, being cut to the quick by the unstoppable, winnowing effect of time itself.
There is a song on Agnetha’s last album called I Was A Flower. I think some of the lines could also be addressed to Time itself:
I was a flower
Now look what you have done
You’ve made my colours fade
Too close to the sun
Once I was innocent
Beautiful, life had just begun
I was a flower
Now look what you have done
There are some other lines of this song that my daughter sings over and over, like kids do:
But now you walk right through me
Like I’m an empty ghost
Now, when I need you the most
My daughter: a young girl, blossoming and full of life, whiling away her time singing of empty ghosts.
Two chronological bookends of a linear journey, being winnowed along the way.
Damn you, Time. Damn you.
Well as conversations go, I couldn’t see the problem.
The end of the year seems to make all of us into philosophers and analysts, and my wife was in suitably reflective mood. Looking back on 2013, she considered the highs and the lows, the blessings and the challenges. She paused when thinking of loved ones lost. She talked of the things that she had found trying, the uncertainties of life that caused her to worry, but also the successes that brought her great joy. She talked of our growth as a couple, and as a family, the way our children were continuing to blossom, and looked forward to greater opportunities for us all in 2014.
Then she asked me to give my perspective on 2013.
“Well, the most emotional parts was Agnetha Fältskog coming out of exile, and Tom Baker appearing at the end of the Doctor Who anniversary special.”
It was when I saw the look on her face that I began to falter.
“Erm….” (where was I? Oh yes-emotional) “James Herbert dying too….I loved his books when I was younger.”
She seemed to be waiting for something else, but I couldn’t fathom what, and as the silence grew between us, she then said, in a very clipped fashion:
“And what about plans for 2014?”
I didn’t feel, exactly, that she was testing me, but I did begin to feel uncomfortable, and thought that the best policy was honesty:
“Well, I am expecting City to win the league.”
Best Wishes to you all from North Manchester General Hospital. Hope the year is a good one for all of us single people.
I reblog this in honour of Agnetha Faltskog, who broke her twenty five year absence from performing live by duetting with Gary Barlow at the Children In Need Rocks concert. You go girl!! Erm, sorry, mature lady!!!
You can live in denial all you want, avoiding mirrors and old classmates on the school run with their own kids in tow who are almost as tall as you are now. You can ignore the fact that you now get out of breath going up the stairs, that your face turns crimson whenever you bend to tie your shoelace. That when you pull back the blinds on a winter’s day and see the snow, your first thought is ‘that cold is going to get into my bones’.
You can convince yourself that you haven’t changed since your late teens, that you still feel exactly the same, and in actual fact those carefree times of childhood and school days were not that long ago.
But then this imaginary, self-constructed world gets shattered when something comes along and smashes a thigh length silver boot right through your constructed facade.
That…
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You can live in denial all you want, avoiding mirrors and old classmates on the school run with their own kids in tow who are almost as tall as you are now. You can ignore the fact that you now get out of breath going up the stairs, that your face turns crimson whenever you bend to tie your shoelace. That when you pull back the blinds on a winter’s day and see the snow, your first thought is ‘that cold is going to get into my bones’.
You can convince yourself that you haven’t changed since your late teens, that you still feel exactly the same, and in actual fact those carefree times of childhood and school days were not that long ago.
But then this imaginary, self-constructed world gets shattered when something comes along and smashes a thigh length silver boot right through your constructed facade.
That something for me goes by the name of Agnetha Fältskog.
When I was young , way too young to understand what was cool, music in the seventies consisted of whatever existed in my Mum and Dad’s cassette and record collection.
Cassette and record. I may as well be talking about the gramophone now.
In those half-glimpsed scenes from back then I can recall listening to Brotherhood of Man, The Seekers, Bay City Rollers, Gilbert O’Sullivan, and Abba, as my brother and I played drums on an upturned bin or biscuit tin.
(Constant Friend tuts, carries on listening to Slade).
At that age, five or six, the corny lyrics written by the two men were just catchy and appealing, and it was the energy and the perfectly complimentary voices of the women that I liked. Then, as I got older, it was one of the women in particular that I liked, the quintessential Nordic blond, Agnetha.
I hate the word crush, it sounds all puppy dog and juvenile, but I was young, and definitely juvenile. And forming a crush is all part of growing up, although I think the kids these days are starting earlier. I have a daughter who at six years of age tells me constantly how fit Olly Murs is.
(Constant Friend shakes his head, Space Dust crackling on his tongue).
These moments are fixed and immortalised in my mind, my young mind, in my denial untouched by the passage of time. But then, suddenly, out of nowhere, it all comes crashing down. Agnetha steps back into the public eye, breaking her self-imposed exile from the limelight, to promote a new album. And, almost as an aside, it is mentioned that the blond, fresh-faced, forever fixed around 1978 beauty is now 63.
That stopped me dead in my excitable tracks.
63.
The same age as my Mother-In-Law.
Reality washed over me cold. Walls came tumbling down.
Admittedly, she still looks good for her age. But there is no getting away from the fact that my original pin-up girl is now a pensioner. Well, she would have been my pin-up if my Dad would have trusted me with tacks.
I am sure that there is an element of air brushing going on here, but still, the rate that the two of us are aging I reckon I will soon be overtaking her and could pass as her Dad. Or at least her elder brother.
(Constant Friend agrees, continues to shuffle his Star Wars bubblegum card collection).
Now my bubble of immortality was well and truly punctured, I began to cast my mind back three decades or so. Who else did I used to like back then?
Erin. Erin Gray from the great Buck Rogers in the Twenty Fifth Century .Full of foreboding, I fearfully began to Google from the suddenly shaky ground of the twenty-first century.
That’s no good, get rid of the silly hat.
That’s the one. Now, what does Wikipedia say? On the plus side, she is still with us.
But.
Again.
63.
The same age as Agnetha.
The same age as my Mother-In-Law.
You hear that, Twiki? Colonel Wilma Deering is now a pensioner too.
And no, before you ask, Twiki never did it for me.
(Constant Friend stops eating his Kop Kops, raises a quizzical eyebrow).
Listening to Agnetha’s new album I was touched-this woman who had been written off as some kind of reclusive and eccentric Garbo, said to have turned her back on music, refusing to leave Sweden because of her paralysing fear of flying, was now in my country promoting her new material. She was singing about being back on our radios again. And she still has that beautiful voice, capable of evoking so well a feeling of fragility and vulnerability.
(“Wuss”, says Constant Friend, lay on his bed, hands splayed behind his head, gazing up at his Wonder Woman poster).
If I just close my eyes and listen, nothing has changed.She still has the moves. I have yet to shave.
In a bid to perpetuate the myth of youth, both for her and for myself, and forever anchor myself to a time long gone, I post this video now of how I remember her then. She, the Girl With The Golden Hair, and I, the Boy With The Full Head Of Hair.
The world was bright, and colourful, and young.
Trousers were wider.
(Constant Friend glances over at the video, nods his understanding).
City Jackdaw 