No, it’s not an Abbaration... Mamma Mia’s songs have had a PC makeover
THEY are hardly the most controversial of bands, with their upbeat songs and wholesome Scandinavian image – but it appears that even Abba have fallen foul of modern sensibilities.
For the Swedish supergroup have changed the lyrics to some of their classic hits to make them more acceptable to today’s audiences.
Tracks re-recorded for this summer’s blockbuster movie, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, have been altered to remove any hint of inappropriate relationships between young girls and older men.
The biggest change comes in the 1976 song When I Kissed The Teacher, about a female student besotted with her male teacher.
Written by Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson, it originally featured the line: ‘One of these days, Gonna tell him I dream of him every night. One of these days, Gonna show him I care. Gonna teach him a lesson alright.’
But the film version changes the teacher’s gender and the emphasis: ‘What a mad day, Now I see everything in a different light. What a mad day, I was up in the air. And she taught me a lesson alright.’
It is sung in the film by Lily James, who plays heroine Donna Sheridan, with Celia Imrie as the teacher.
But not every fan is happy. ‘Why the hell are they changing the words to this song!!!’ asked one on social media. ‘Seriously, trying to make a classic song PC.’
Another complained the change was ineffective: ‘I know they have changed the gender to not seem predatory but the lyrics still imply being infatuated with a teacher.’
However, others praised the decision, with one writing: ‘I was glad… the original lyrics would not fly today, especially where if it were a man, he’d be jailed in a heartbeat.’
In another change that may be seen as an effort to make a girl seem less vulnerable and lonely, the ‘bashful child’ in 1977’s The Name Of The Game is now just ‘curious’.
Abba biographer Carl Magnus Palm said: ‘I don’t think it’s important for the songs to stay in tune with the current climate. But if they need to tweak the lyrics to make them work better in Mamma Mia! then so be it.’ And former BBC Radio 1 DJ Mike Read added: ‘Rock’n’roll was founded on young love and you can’t rewrite history.
‘But you can see why people have started looking at songs and asked: “Should we still be playing that?”’ he added.
Ulvaeus said last night that the teacher was made female so she could sing a response without needing a ‘horrible’ key change.
He said: ‘She had to be a woman. Simple as that. And why wouldn’t the vice-chancellor be a woman?’
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