Abba - So Long

Could Abba survive the curse of Eurovision one hit wonders? Abba visited Hamburg in West Germany on January 30 1975 to perform their current single "So Long" on the 50th show of the popular German tv program "Disco", which was broadcast 3 days later on Saturday February 2. Polydor presented the group with 4 gold discs afterwards, to acknowledge sales of two million copies of Waterloo. The girls developed a special dance routine for So Long, which can be seen at the end. Agnetha gets a bit carried away with her dancing and accidently knocks into Frida at 2:40! The girls rehearsed dances with their South African born American choreographer Graham Tainton (who emigrated to Sweden) for their stage routines, doing advanced gymnastics and aerobics exercises in the dance studio at the Polar Music office in Baldersgatan in Stockholm. Graham Tainton had been Frida's jazz dance teacher before Abba and said: "Frida is extremely talented. She could have been a professional dancer without any doubt. She made a lot of progress and this gave her an even bigger interest. When we meet we dance and dance, we can't stop dancing!". So Long was recorded at Glen Studio, Stockholm on August 22 1974 and released on November 18 1974 as the first single from their third album "Abba", with I've Been Waiting For You as the B-side. This song was released instead of the stronger "S.O.S" because it was an up-tempo shuffle rocker with a beat and musical style similar to their Eurovision-conquering "Waterloo", and was thought to stand a greater chance of becoming a hit It was not a great success however and has the distinction of giving Abba their worst international chart performance reaching the top ten in only 2 countries: #3 Austria, #7 Sweden. It received no air play on Radio 1 and failed to chart in the UK, as Abba struggled to overcome the curse of Eurovision one-hit wonders. From the start British critics had said things like "Abba won't survive Eurovision. They won the contest, but they'll never be able to return to the top of the charts with another strong song. Nobody has ever made a career from it." It was not until SOS was released in June 1975 that they re-established themselves in the UK charts. Bjorn recalls: "Groups like ours that had been tagged as 'Eurovision winners from Continental Europe' were not meant to have more than one hit. There was a point a few singles into our career following that initial success with Waterloo when we had 2 or 3 flops at least in the UK. We were almost beginning to doubt ourselves, or at least I was. This was a period when we were definitely not at our best. We had been trying to be a rock band more than a pop band. We had released songs like 'So Long' trying to be just that, and then we found out that it was not us. So we said to ourselves "Let's write the songs we want to write and nothing but". And from then on we felt free to use all the styles we liked from German schlager to Italian ballads, French chanson and Anglo-Saxon pop. We tried our hand at everything." Benny recalls: "It's not a good song at all. At this point we wanted 'Rock Me' as a single, but we were advised that with Bjorn singing it would be difficult to identify it as an Abba record. The recordings we did at Glen Studio almost never turned out that well, as the acoustics weren't exactly the best. The sound on a track like 'So Long' was much too hard and sort of steely." Glen Studio was located in the basement of the Glenmark family home. Sound engineer Michael Tretow grabbed the opportunity to try out new tricks and methods. For 'So Long' he placed the guitar amplifier in the Glenmark family's tiled pool hall, using it as an echo chamber! Music / Lyrics: Benny Andersson, Bjorn Ulvaeus Lead vocals: Agnetha & Frida You think you're gonna make me softer With your fancy car, a ha ha But I can tell you all your tricks Ain't gonna get you far, a ha ha They say that money's got a magic touch But not to me it doesn't mean that much You won't have me tonight Alright, alright, alright, alright So long, see you honey Can't buy me with your money Tracy, Daisy they may be crazy But I'll never be your girl So long, see you honey Can't buy me with your money You know it's not worth tryin' So long, so long, so long You didn't have to send me flowers Like you did today a ha ha I wouldn't keep a thing from you I gave them all away, a ha ha The girls might fall for everything you've got But I'm not one of them you know I'm not You won't have me tonight Alright, alright, alright, alright So long, see you honey Can't buy me with your money Tracy, Daisy they may be crazy But I'll never be your girl So long, see you honey Can't buy me with your money You know it's not worth tryin' So long, so long, so long So long, see you honey Can't buy me with your money You know it's not worth tryin' So long, so long, so long So long, so long, so long So long, so long, so long