Welcome back, Abba, thanks for memories

Mama Mia, there she goes again. My daughter’s swaying to Abba, singing along. She’s also humming Money,

Money, Money, another memorable number by the group. On my way to work my iPod comes up with I Have a Dream, a favourite of my mom’s. The sitar interludes make it unique, and I wonder why I never caught it in all my years of listening to the group.

It’s lilting, and combined with those pleasing guitar chords in the background, my spirits soar on my dull commute — with the same signals flashing, the same vehicles passing me (I notice small things), as I stick to my lane on the only route I know. What are the chances that of the 5,000 songs on my gadget that I play in no specific order, Abba numbers come up so often these days? The album stored on my iPod is from their digitally remastered

Abba Gold version that released in 1990. But it works for my easy listening senses as their entire body of work is covered. I remember buying the CD several years later. Who knows it could be lying somewhere in my room back home in India for my dad to pick up and swing back to the ’70s on his ancient CD player.

For me, it’s been a sort of route awakening in Dubai when I hear news of the much-awaited Abba reunion. They have nothing to prove, so why get together again after 35 years, I wonder. They had resisted the temptation to regroup for $1 billion some years ago, so this move is not for the money. But why now? Benny Anderssen, one of the members, said they’re doing it for fun, for the joy of it. “I don’t feel we have to think about, ‘Oh, what if it was better before?’” he said to the BBC. The past is no burden on the group, and I’m relieved expectations are being tempered.

The group is belting out Dancing Queen as I drive now, the same song with the Disco beat that I listened to in the early ’80s on my dad’s radio, a Telerad. The station is fresh on my mind — Sri Lanka Radio. The other song that remains stuck in my mind is the Bee Gees number, Tragedy, sung in falsetto by the legendary Barry Gibb. You see, I can be a sucker for nostalgia and good music often gets me emotional. I feel it in my heart.

I would go to great lengths to listen to the Swedesh quartet. Their harmony fascinated me, the high octaves held me in thrall, Benny struck the piano keys with gusto — ebony and ivory were in perfect harmony. I didn’t care for the words, the lyrics back then (I still don’t and the missus loves ribbing me about it). The bizarre clothes the group wore at the height of their fame– glittering hotpants, sequinned jumpsuits and platform-heeled shoes — made the band stand out, as fashion purists cringed. I didn’t care, or was too young to figure out.

One of the band members, Bjorn Ulvaeus said: “In my honest opinion, we looked like nuts in those years. Nobody was as badly dressed on stage as we were.” But that didn’t take away from their music, though I have frowned upon the bell-bottoms generation. I must confess I had a thing going for the two leading ladies, Agnetha Faltskog and Anni Frid-Lyngstad, better known as Frida. They were singers not performers, very Swedish, and chilled. Ice-maidens, if you may, expressionless on stage and when they looked down on you from album covers.

Abba appeared distant through their diffident smiles, yet they drew me close through their eclectic songs. The group were quite unlike the many digital junkies out and about on the music scene these days who simply mix up old classical pop and rock numbers and make a mockery of real talent.

So I picked up my musical cues from the radio, and was inspired to hear stories of my mom hitting some high gospel notes on Feba Radio in Bangalore. For Abba, I didn’t have to go further than St Mark’s Road, where my dad’s uncle Bernard Joseph lived in what was stylishly known as The Cottage. He was a leading, but modest album collector who had the latest gadgets those days. His living room looked like a recording studio and his vinyl collection was simply out of the world.

He clearly had a cultured and cultivated taste in music, everything a young, wannabe musical fanatic needed to satiate his senses with — from jazz, pop, country, to disco. This was where I found musical

nirvana, where I discovered Abba. Audio cassettes were the rage back then but I preferred the ritual of playing ‘records’. The cleaning of the disc, the gentle placement of the needle on the right groove followed by a crackle on the stereo, then sheer musical delight. The task needed precision and my dad’s cousins played record after record until I fell asleep late in the evening. I must have been five years old, then.

Cut to the present and back on the freeway, I decide to take the slip road for a pit stop at the gas station. During the wait I scroll down and choose the Abba Gold album. Random numbers won’t do today. The rest of the drive is a breeze, a blast from the past with Super Trooper, The Winner Takes It All, Voulez-Vous, Does Your Mother Know, and many more. I realise Thank You For the Music is not included in the collection, but I remember some lines: Who can live without it, I ask in all honesty; What would life be? Without a song or a dance what are we? So I say thank you for the music; For giving it to me.

Abba drew me close through their eclectic songs. The group were quite unlike the many digital junkies on the music scene these days who simply mix up old classical pop and rock numbers and make a mockery of real talent