>> From the Library of
Congress in Washington D.C.
>> Nick Brown: Good evening
ladies and Gentlemen.
Welcome to the Library of Congress.
My name is Nicholas Brown.
I'm one of the producers
of Bibliodiscotheque.
Thanks so much for joining us.
[ Applause ]
And many thanks to those
of you who have been coming
to multiple Bibliodiscotheque
programs.
We see some of you
faithful film buffs out here
and also various guests who came
to our Tim Gunn event last night.
Which is already online on
YouTube and available for viewing
if you were unable to attend.
This event is entitled Disco's
Influence on European Dance Music.
And we're kind of going to
be looking at that topic
with a case study of ABBA.
And we're very pleased to
have our dear colleague,
James Wintle with us
this evening who's going
to give this wonderful lecture for
the first portion of the evening,
and then we're going to go
right into ABBA the movie,
which was released in 1977.
In addition to being a
part of Bibliodiscotheque,
this event is presented
in conjunction
with European Union Month of
Culture in the United States.
We'd like to extend our special
gratitude to the delegation
of the European Union to the
United States and also the Embassy
of Sweden for their support of
this event and also programming
at the Library throughout the year.
Our special thanks goes
to Constance Whiteside,
the senior outreach officer for the
EU Delegation and Linda Zachrison,
the cultural counselor
of the Embassy of Sweden.
We worked with the Embassy last
year for the world premiere
of Pontus Lidberg's
choreography Woodland
with the Martha Graham
Dance Company.
So we were really fortunate to
work with them again this year.
You can watch the entire
performance of Woodland
on our website, loc.gov/webcasts.
So tonight is going
to be a fun night.
James is awesome.
If you went to his heavy metal
lecture, you know that we're here
to have fun and learn
something in the process.
So you are invited to live tweet
in a charming manner, we hope.
We have a few hashtags for you.
The first one is, of
course, hashtag LC Disco.
The second one is EUMC2017,
so that the European Union
governments can all know
that we're here and
hanging out and having fun.
And then a special one just
for James is hashtag
JWin, which is his handle.
So we want to make sure
he gets a plug in there.
James is a music reference
specialist in the Library
of Congress music division.
He holds multiple degrees, including
degrees from the University
of Minnesota and University
of North Texas.
He was an active singer and
musicologist and librarian.
And he has taught in a
variety of institutions,
including the Catholic University
of America this coming summer.
You can read his full
bio in your program.
Tomorrow evening we're going
to have another lecture right
in this space entitled
the Mathematics
of African Dance Rhythms.
Joining us will be
Martin Scherzinger
who is a professor at
New York University.
And on Friday at noon we have a
panel entitled Music and Veterans,
the Vietnam Era in
Disco, which will be
in the Whittall Pavilion at 12:00.
These events are presented in
conjunction with the Library
of Congress Veterans History Project
at the American Folklife Center.
So a special announcement
and something
that you might not have
known, public programs
at the Library are supported
by private donations.
That is one of the only reasons why
we have them, which is really great.
So we believe in the public-private
partnerships here dating back
to 1925 when Elizabeth Sprague
Coolidge donated the funds
to establish the Coolidge
Auditorium, which was built
within the Jefferson
Building across the street.
So in this tradition of giving,
which has produced things
like Appalachian Spring, the
famous ballet by Aaron Copland
and Martha Graham, which is
premiered across the street,
we invite you to consider making
a contribution on your own time,
when it is convenient to you.
All amounts matter and make
a difference and make it
so that programs like this can
take place for free to the public.
And you can visit us
for more information
on that at loc.gov/disco.
Which is not the typical
philanthropy page,
but it is this week.
Great. Any questions
before we get started?
Please be a little mindful of
your colleagues in the audience
when we get into the film.
So many flashing screens
won't be so great for that,
but if you can do it
discreetly, wonderful.
But for the live tweeting portion,
feel free to go wild with that.
Great. Welcome James Wintle.
[ Applause ]
>> James Wintle: Just another word
about the charitable
giving to the Library.
If you have checks that are made
out to cash, and you need somebody
to take them, later I'll be
collecting those outside the
door here.
Thank you very much for that.
Okay, so thank you, Nick,
for a lovely introduction.
Let me begin by saying
that the title
of this lecture is a bit misleading.
I'm going to talk about
ABBA, not really talking
about Euro disco as a movement.
As I got further into my
research on this topic,
I realized that ABBA was something
as an anomaly as a
European pop band.
And there's really too much
to say about them even to fit
into this short film intro, much
less the entire Euro disco movement,
which is vast and wide and so forth.
So, here we are.
Like most of you, I am not
an ABBA scholar per se.
I am an ABBA fan.
My introduction to ABBA came
through their radio hits
of the late 70s and early 80s.
I remember taking great
delight in singing along
with the syncopated background
vocals of Super Trooper
and Take a Chance on Me,
which were my favorites.
But it was only after I began
studying music seriously
at the University of
Minnesota in the early 1990s
where Scandinavian culture
has always been de rigueur,
that I really heard ABBA.
Although by that point I was
laser-focused on the study
of classical music, I had a friend
in school that was a big ABBA fan.
And he also happened to be one
of the most talented pianists
in the music department.
So his opinion carried
some weight with me.
As I started listening critically
to their songs on his advice,
I came to the realization that
they were really good songs,
like really good.
The obvious care that had been taken
to get everything in its right place
and the little unexpected touches
that were added to the production
of each track, caused me
to afford Benny Andersson
and Bjorn Ulvaeus the
same consideration
that I had previously reserved
for more conventionally respected
songwriters like Elton John
and Bernie Taupin or
Lennon and McCartney.
This all happened around the
time of a worldwide ABBA revival.
Of course, in those days before
the internet was fashionable,
I was completely unaware of it.
The greatest hits compilation ABBA
Gold had been released in 1992
and was reigniting interest
in the band in a big way.
Without that larger context, it
seemed like an odd coincidence
that two Australian
movies I had seen that year
in 1994 had featured
ABBA-heavy soundtracks.
Muriel's Wedding and
Priscilla Queen of the Desert,
were both hugely successful films
and favorites among
me and my friends.
And they helped bring ABBA back
into the minds of their audience.
My big takeaway from
this experience was gee,
Australians must really love ABBA.
And, oh how right I was.
Many years later when I saw ABBA
the Movie for the first time,
I finally understood what
I had then only surmised,
that ABBA was huge in Australia.
ABBA the Movie documents the
band's 1977 Australian tour
and shows the ABBA mania that
had taken hold in that country.
It also includes some incredible
performance footage woven
into a rather weak storyline
concerning a disc jockey trying
to secure an interview with
the band for his radio station.
And the film has been remastered,
but as Solomon said earlier,
you can't remaster an
acting performance.
But so it is.
Before we get to the film, though,
a little bit about the
history of the band.
ABBA, as most fans already
know, functions as an acronym
for the first names
of the band members.
How many people here speak Swedish?
I just want to apologize
to you first.
I speak a little German but no
Swedish, so if these come out weird,
it's just a part of life.
I'm sorry ahead of time.
Agnetha Faltskog, Bjorn
Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson
and Anni-Frid Lyngstad,
known as Frida.
You may also, that's the
first letters of their names.
That's why it's an acronym.
You may also know that
the group consisted
of two married couples
for most of its history.
Agnetha and Bjorn, that is
the blonde one and the one
without the beard, were
married from 1971 to 1980.
And Benny and Frida, the
sometimes redhead one and the one
with the beard, who plays the piano,
were married from 1978 to 1981.
The relationships actually took
quite a different trajectory
as Benny and Frieda lived
together beginning around 1971
and didn't married until the height
of the band's career in 1978.
While Agnetha and Bjorn married
before the band had officially
formed and then filed for divorce
in 1978 while it was still going,
both agreeing that the dissolution
of their marriage should not affect
their responsibilities in the band.
Despite relationship
difficulties, the wholesome image
of the band was built
around the two couples,
and the songs that they sang were
thought, by their fan base at least,
to be a reflection of
those relationships.
This is why when Bjorn wrote
The Winner Takes it All
after their split had happened,
which is so beautifully sung
by Agnetha, the press labeled it
sometimes a cruel act of revenge,
while Bjorn claimed that the
specifics of the song had no basis
in reality saying in an interview
that there are no winners
in divorce.
Before ABBA officially formed
around 1972, Benny Andersson
and Bjorn Ulvaeus were in two
very popular Swedish pop groups.
Benny in The Hep Stars and
Bjorn in the Hootenanny Singers.
The Hootenanny Singers were
managed by Stig Anderson,
who would also manage
ABBA and was instrumental
in their international success.
Before ABBA broke through
the international market,
Stig Anderson had the same
ambition for the Hootenanny Singers.
In 1964, their single, Gabrielle,
a Swedish version of a Russian song
by Arkady Ostrovsky, and
they picked a Russian song
because this was still during
Soviet times and they didn't have
to pay any sort of copywrite
to the Russian authors.
They could just use the song
because it was considered public
domain outside of the Soviet Union.
Had reached number five in the
Swedish charts, and Stig's eye
for success abroad led him to
have the group rerecord the song
in Finnish, German, Dutch, Italian
and English, which is a trick
that he then used to promote
ABBA songs around the world.
Here is the English version.
The fact that we're not going
to watch the Hootenanny Singers,
the movie, after we watch
these videos, should tell you
about the success of
Stig's [inaudible].
But here is that song.
Oh, there are little
commercials before these,
so I'll just mute those.
Unless anybody needs a new
phone or the champagne of beers.
[ Music ]
[ Singing ]
[ Music ]
[ Singing ]
Yeah, [inaudible] harmonica playing.
[ Singing ]
It might just be my imagination,
but I think that Bjorn,
second from your right, is sort of
emoting more than everyone else.
Maybe it's just me.
Maybe I just want to
see it that way.
Yeah, he's the star.
But if he's not the star yet.
[ Singing ]
Okay, we don't need another
harmonica solo to get the idea.
Alright. Yeah, not big Blues
Traveler fans, these guys, I guess.
Okay, so The Hep Stars, to go
on with what Benny was doing
around this time, The Hep
Stars was actually one
of the most successful
pop bands of the 1960s.
However, they were often
criticized by their peers,
even though they were
hugely popular in Sweden.
They were criticized for
performing only covers.
And this changed around 1965
when their keyboard player,
Benny Andersson, began to
compose songs for the group.
His third song, Wedding, was
released as a single in May of 1966
and was the first to really
prominently feature his
organ playing.
Despite the rather
pessimistic lyrics,
he did play the song a few
years later at the wedding
of his friends, Bjorn and Agnetha.
He played the organ at their wedding
and played the Mendelssohn's March
when they came in and his
Hep Stars song Wedding
when they left apparently.
And so this is The Hep
Stars with Wedding.
And we're going to
listen to none of that.
But Disney Fairytale
Wedding sounds so nice.
Oh my gosh.
[ Music ]
[ Singing ]
There's Benny, pre-beard obviously.
[ Music ]
[ Singing ]
Lip-syncing the song gives you
time to flourish, you know.
[ Singing ]
Alright, so a bit of The Hep Stars.
I'm, the more I listen
to The Hep Stars,
the more I like them, honestly.
It's really catchy stuff.
Really fun.
And apparently, these guys were
quite the bunch of party animals.
So, obviously, yeah.
They were quite popular
in their day, definitely.
I need to work on that
haircut though.
So as luck would have it, in June
of 1966, the guys in The Hep Stars
and the guys in The Hootenanny
Singers crossed paths at a party,
and Bjorn and Benny
hit it off immediately.
A few weeks later they met again
and wrote their first song together
called It Isn't Easy to Say.
Later that year when The Hep Stars
guitarist was unable to make it
for a gig, Benny suggested
to the other guys
that Bjorn sit in with the band.
And he did this actually on a number
of occasions then in the last 60s.
And I read an interview with Bjorn
where he was saying that being
on stage with The Hep Stars was
the first time he really felt
like a pop star, and it was one
of the great memories
of his life really.
Even, you know, after
all the ABBA stuff,
that being on with The Hep
Stars was really great.
I can imagine because, I
mean, the haircuts alone.
So as Bjorn moved away from the
folk style of the Hootenanny Singers
and closer to Benny's pop
sensibility, the partnership
between the two musicians
strengthened.
With the help of Stig
Anderson and Bengt Bernhag,
the men behind Polar Music,
the label that would garner
international success with ABBA,
the two would learn the
ropes of the music business
and hone their songwriting skills.
Stig Anderson would also
contribute lyrics to many
of ABBA's earliest
songs, while Benny
and Bjorn were still
working on their English.
And I actually read an early
interview with the two guys,
I think it was in Melody Maker, and
they're talking to the interviewer,
and the interviewer says
something about the fact
that their lyrics are kind
of weird for English lyrics.
And they start asking him advice.
Like, well what do you
think we should do?
Do you think we should
do it like this?
Do you think we should
do it like that?
Like they were so interested in
learning and absorbing information.
And you really get a sense of that
when you read about these early days
that both Bjorn and Benny were
just like sponges for information.
And anyone they met, they wanted to
learn as much as they could from.
And I think that's part of what
added to the success of the band is
that they had these two guys that
were really just eager, eager,
eager to know as much as
they possibly could know.
And being with the guys
at Polar Music, I think,
added a lot to that for them.
So meanwhile, away
from the pop world,
Anni-Frid Lyngstad was
singing jazz standards
with a group called the
Gunnar Sandevarn Orchestra,
which in reality was
a jazz trio consisting
of pianist Gunnar Sandevarn,
Frida and her then husband
Ragnar Fredriksson on drums.
And later, she formed her own
group called the Anni-Frid Four,
which she really enjoyed sort of
being in charge of things with that.
In 1969, Frida had
moved on to working
on the Swedish cabaret circuit
with the pianist Charles Norman,
and it was through him that
she met Benny and Bjorn
in a restaurant one night.
The three musicians hit it off, and
despite their musical differences,
Benny, The Hep Star, and Frida the
jazz singer began to fall in love.
By 1971, the two were involved
personally and musically.
And Benny had convinced Frida
to stop, convinced Frida
to sing pop music instead of jazz
and had produced her first solo
album, which was called Frida,
which included covers of a number of
well-known pop and rock songs sung
in Swedish, including my
favorite David Bowie song.
So I thought I'd play that for you
after, oh, there is no commercial.
Here we go.
[ Singing ]
Okay. So you get the idea there.
Fantastic.
Such a great singer.
And she does not only
Bowie on this album.
She also does the Sounds of
Silence, a real sort of wide array
of American and British rock songs.
And also, interestingly
does a couple of songs
from Jesus Christ Superstar.
And that, which is also kind of
weird because Agnetha then was
in Jesus Christ Superstar
in Stockholm.
Weird sort of coincidence there.
So, anyway, the fourth
member of ABBA,
and the most experienced musician
of the bunch really,
was Agnetha Faltskog.
Agnetha began singing in
public at the age of five
and was composing songs
by the age of ten.
All of this is kind of surprising
when you think about the fact
that mostly all anybody ever
talked about when she was
in ABBA was her backside.
But she was, in fact,
the only member of ABBA
that could read and write music.
By 17, she had made her
first professional recording
of her own compositions.
Remembering the session,
Agnetha said, "It sounded exactly
like I had hoped it would.
Sven-Olof Waldorf captured
it perfectly."
And there's a great
special, TV special thing,
called ABBA meets Dick
Cavett, something like that.
It's ABBA and Dick
Cavett doing an interview,
and there's some performance in it.
And she talks about this experience
of in that interview as well.
And talks about the thrill
of hearing her own songs
that she composed on the piano
realized by a full orchestra
and going into the
studio as a teenager
and hearing that actually happen.
And what a moving experience it was.
The conductor of the sessions,
Sven-Olof Waldorf, would later work
with ABBA writing the orchestral
arrangements for most of their songs
up to and including
Dancing Queen in 1976
and famously conducted the orchestra
at their breakthrough
Eurovision performance of Waterloo
in a Napoleon costume,
which we will watch later.
After recording her first
album of her own songs
and doing a bit more work,
Agnetha soon had a number one hit
on the Swedish charts with
her song, [foreign language],
which is probably not
how you say that at all.
But we'll listen to it.
[ Music ]
[ Singing ]
Okay. So you get the idea there.
And actually, a lot of Agnetha's
early albums you can get
on Spotify and that sort of thing.
As you can hear, she was a big
fan of pop singers of the 60s,
like Connie Francis
was her favorite.
And that style of, Peggy Lee and
these kinds of really emotional,
you know, emotive singers.
And that's one of the things that
she really brought to ABBA as well,
the sort of sense of pathos
and everything that she sang.
Which you can hear in that as well.
By 1969, Agnetha had met Bjorn,
and the two hit it off while
still pursuing separate careers.
The next year Benny and
Bjorn released an album
of original compositions
titled Lycka.
It was primarily meant to function
as a showcase for their compositions
in hopes that other artists would
like and record those songs.
The album was produced
by the duo with the help
of their mentor Bengt Bernhag
and engineered by Michael Tretow.
And Michael then is an important
figure in the history of ABBA.
He would go on to be an important
force in their success working
from behind the console on
practically all of their recordings.
For the recording, Benny and
Bjorn used Agnetha and Frida
as background vocalists
on a few tunes.
The first track to feature
all four members of ABBA
on the same recording
is Hej gamle man,
which is Hey Old Man
basically, is that it?
Yeah. And we'll not do that.
Oh, YouTube Red.
Okay.
[ Music ]
[ Singing ]
I know this is telling a story.
I hate to cut it off in the
middle, but we must proceed.
So, the four singers and
songwriters and whatnot soon began
to work together in
earnest as a cabaret act
on the Swedish nightclub circuit
after a few difficult seasons
touring under the name Festfolk,
which included songs and skits.
It was a like a full cabaret act
where they did stuff, you know,
in between songs, which they
were apparently never really
comfortable with.
It included songs and skits,
one of which was a duet
for the men titled Angry Young
Men Unite in which they dressed,
oh no, well save your laugh.
They dressed as children
holding lollipops,
wearing hats with propellers
while demanding their rights
at a daycare center.
That was the song.
So after doing that
for a little while,
the group was obviously discouraged,
as we all would have been
if we had to sit through it.
Luckily, Hej gamle man was
a hit, reaching number one
on the Svensktoppen, which is the
Swedish chart that clocks the sales
of records in Swedish in Sweden.
And the four continued
working together.
Eventually, they would record
their first album as a group,
which was called Ring Ring,
under the moniker Bjorn
Benny and Agnetha Frida.
The album did well in Sweden,
Norway and Austria, and the single,
the song Ring Ring, was eventually
rerecorded in Swedish, German,
Spanish and English, became a
hit and was included on the UK
and US versions of their
breakout album, Waterloo, in 1974.
The song was also a hit in Australia
during the height of ABBA-mania
in that country, which you will
see in one particularly funny scene
in ABBA The Movie, including a bunch
of school kids singing Ring Ring.
You'll know what I
mean when you see it.
As many of you know, Abba's big
break was the 1974 Eurovision Song
Contest, which they won
with the song Waterloo.
This was a blessing and
a curse for the band
since the contest was famous
for producing one hit wonders.
Shaking off the stigma attached
to the contest was not easy,
particularly in the UK.
In a 1976 interview,
this was two years later,
with Melody Maker Benny said,
"The thing is that England has been
the most difficult market for us.
I don't know why.
I think the problem was to get
rid of the Eurovision reputation,
and at last, we seem
to have done that."
So it took a few years
for him to feel that way.
In 2005, on the other
hand, the 50th anniversary
of the Eurovision contest, Waterloo
was voted the best song ever
to win the contest.
So there was some retribution there.
This is a video of the television
broadcast of their performance
on the Eurovision Contest.
And you will see at the beginning
the announcer completely,
I think he gets everyone's
name wrong.
He might get Bjorn's name right.
But he gets almost everyone's
name wrong when he shows the group
and says some kind of sexist things.
It's great, you know,
it's great 70s television.
>> And we move now
across into Sweden,
the largest of the
Scandinavian countries.
And although we're looking at
streets, it's a country full
of mountains, lakes and forests.
And, of course, it's
full of blonde Vikings.
And this is one of the reasons
why it's good for pictures.
These are the ABBA
group, Bjorn, Frida.
>> James Wintle: Oh he got that one.
>> Anna, who's just beside
her with the long blonde hair.
And Benny.
If you can work that out, that
is why they're called ABBA.
>> James Wintle: Not any of
those are right except Frida.
>> And Anna.
They made their first
record in 1972,
and if all the judges were
men, which they're not,
I'm sure this group
would get a lot of votes.
You'll see why in a minute.
>> James Wintle: As I was saying.
>> Napoleon, no wonder their
song is called Waterloo.
This is Sven-Olof Walldoff, who
has really entered into the spirit
of it all, dressed as Napoleon.
Winning war.
Waterloo by ABBA for Sweden.
Watch this one.
[ Music ]
[ Singing ]
>> James Wintle: I
really want that guitar.
[ Singing ]
Where's the saxophone player?
I don't know.
[ Singing ]
Alright, so to see this
and then in ABBA The Movie
to watch the difference between
their level of performance ability
from the three years ensuing, I
mean it's really like night and day.
They sort of have some of the stuff
down now, like doing the, you know,
the turning and all that.
But this is like amateur
hour compared
to what they were doing
even just a few years later.
But still, you know, fantastic,
and oh my God, what a great song.
So anyway, after this performance,
ABBA went on to record
seven more studio albums,
although they were always
primarily known as a singles band.
Throughout their career
they released 73 singles
in various languages
in various countries.
And for those singles, 35
music videos were produced
for the 73, out of 73 singles.
Which is a pretty staggering number
considering this was before MTV
or YouTube or anything like that.
Of those videos, 31 of them were
directed by Lasse Hallstrom,
who is also the person who
directed ABBA The Movie.
It all comes around.
He went on to direct such
critically acclaimed films
as What's Eating Gilbert
Grape, The Cider House Rules
and Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.
However, his early career was
closely associated with ABBA.
The videos were a key factor
in promoting the band's image,
their individual personalities
and especially the relationships
between the members of the band,
as seen in the video
for Take a Chance on Me.
This is a Hallstrom special.
[ Music ]
That person doesn't
like this song at all.
Have you ever used one
of these Echo things?
Very weird.
Echo, play ABBA.
Oh and cookies, oh Lord.
It just goes on and on.
Sorry about that.
Okay, here we go.
[ Singing ]
Oh yeah.
[ Singing ]
She's like, am I supposed
to wink now?
[ Singing ]
Get a little extra
there for your money.
[ Singing ]
Alright. So, then in the ABBA
revival that came in the early 90s,
one of the greatest bits of ABBA
cover songs that came out was,
in fact, Erasure who did a
little take on that video.
[ Singing ]
You don't actually need
four people in your group
if you have two open-minded
people, that worked out really well.
[ Singing ]
And they look bored,
too [inaudible].
[ Singing ]
Alright, so this obviously was
not directed by Lasse Hallstrom,
even though it is a classic
of the greater world of ABBA.
But let's go ahead
and get to the movie
since we're running a
little short of time.
As we watch ABBA the movie,
there are a couple of things
that you should probably know.
Although Lasse Hallstrom was a
regular member of ABBA's circle
by this time, and if you read
about ABBA very much you'll see
that from their very
earliest part of their career,
they pretty much worked with
the same people all the time,
the same sound engineers, the same
producers, the same record company.
They had a very close-knit group.
And Lasse Hallstrom was
definitely a part of that.
While this was going, while
the movie was being filmed,
the group was only aware that he was
documenting their Australian tour.
They were not aware that he
had added a narrative element
to the film involving the radio disc
jockey following the band on tour.
So when the disc jockey
character shows
up at a press conference asking them
if they can all go someplace quiet
to talk, and other kind of creepy
stuff, the band has no idea
that he is an actor who has
been sent there to do that.
They think he's just a
weirdo, like in real life.
So all of that is happening
with them basically
unaware of what's going on.
The press conferences, interviews
and performance footage is
obviously real and not staged.
The only bit that was filmed
post-production are scenes of ABBA
in their hotel room talking
about the performances and stuff.
And that was actually
filmed in Stockholm,
in a hotel in Stockholm,
not in Australia.
One other oddity is the inclusion
of the song Get on the Carousel,
which was never recorded
by the group
and only appears in this movie.
It was part of a mini musical called
The Girl with the Golden Hair.
The four-song sequence had a
loose storyline about a young girl
who leaves her hometown
to pursue stardom.
The first song in the
so-called mini musical,
if I said the thing was called
The Girl with the Golden Hair,
is there an ABBA song you think
is probably a part of that?
Yeah, right, exactly,
Thank You for the Music.
It's like the first line
of Thank You for the Music.
Is, yeah. So Thank You for the Music
is the first song in the sequence
in which Agnetha sings,
I've been so lucky.
I'm the girl with the golden hair.
Followed by I Wonder (Departure)
which is sung by Frida,
and then I'm a Marionette,
which receives
and eccentric stage
performance in the movie.
And finally, Get on the Carousel.
The first three songs were the last
three songs on ABBA, The Album.
But then the last one,
Get on the Carousel,
was thought to not quite be
good enough to be on the album.
And so it was only
a part of this tour.
And this was Benny and Bjorn's first
attempt at musical theater, which,
of course, would be the
focus of their later career.
I'm sure there are chess
fans in the room as I am.
So now, let us enjoy the 1977
classic, ABBA, The Movie.
[ Applause ]
>> This has been a presentation
of the Library of Congress.
Visit us at loc.gov.