Now this is memory. Not the song so much but ABBA in general. It was virtually the only example of contemporary pop music in the house when I was growing up. Now, almost forty years on, things have come full circle and pretty much everyone is lining up to proclaim their greatness. Maybe my mum and dad were onto something. Watched a programme on Friday where John Grant was saying this was one of the best records ever made. John Lennon, Pete Townshend and Ray Davies were also fans and really they should know. Of course Agnetha's delivery and just the expression on her face as she sings the song are an incredible part of its appeal and resonance. Every time I see a video of the group from this phase of their career it takes me back to falling in love for the first time with a Danish girl when I was 18, staying and working at the hotel below in Locarno, Switzerland on the shores of Lake Maggiore. Nothing came of it. Which makes the whole experience a very pure memory somehow. Of course neither she nor any of the other Scandinavian girls I worked with there liked ABBA at all. I'd still stick by my parents' judgement.
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