Reuvenations, 23 November, 2015 - Listening to ABBA

One of the background noises of my life were the tunes of ABBA, the Swedish band that took Europe by storm in the 1970's http://www.britannica.com/topic/ABBA.  During the years that I was finishing up my bachelor's degree at Baruch College, CUNY, I would see signs for ABBA everywhere.  I wondered what "Abba" meant.  I was THAT divorced from the popular culture of the day that I had no idea - none at all.  This evening I watched several videos of the band (this is one of them, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CU1hxoS0XQ) - because their song Dancing Queen has always haunted me.  Those familiar with the band know that for a good part of its career, it consisted of two couples.  In reading the Encyclopaedia Britannica article referenced above, I learned why it was only the tune Dancing Queen that haunted me.  The music that ABBA put out was disco music.  It took a while for me to understand that it had been ABBA that fueled disco music in the early 1970's in Europe - and that it was the Bee Gees that took it to its height in the movie Saturday Night Fever in the United States of America, where I lived at the time.

In truth, it is music that soothes the savage beast.

But the problem comes with the musicians.  The group ABBA could not hold it together because of their romantic involvements with each other.  As each couple divorced in the group, the energy went out of the music.  The group started in the early 1970's - and watching them perform, you could see that they were having a grand time together.  They were married, in love and having a ball.  But as time progressed, the divorces showed in pain and strain on their faces - the members of the band were further and further apart on the stage - and were doing their best to have a good time - and not succeeding.  By 1982, the joy had been fully sapped - and the band broke up.