My life: Bjorn Ulvaeus
One of the two men who put the Bs into Abba talks to Tom Cassidy about the Swedish pop sensation and the secrets of the Mamma Mia! stage show's success.
T We (Benny Andersson and Ulvaeus) started off as friends. We had the same interest, writing songs, so we started doing that, but the friendship was the most important thing. As the years went by, we became almost like brothers. We always wanted to write that wonderful, great melody and if we could do that better together, then so be it. When a song became a hit, that was just lucky. Out of 12 songs on an album, not every one was hit material but a few were and we were just lucky that people had the same taste as we did.
After we'd won (the Eurovision Song Contest) with Waterloo in 1974, we had not only artistic freedom but financial freedom and there was no one breathing down our necks any more. The record company would say, "You have to be ready by this or that time," and we didn't say, "F*** you," but we said, "No, it's ready when it's ready." The creative side of it was on our terms completely.
We stuck to an idea and a dream that we had. We found that we could be the people who were writing really good pop songs. In the same way as The Beatles, we wanted every album to be a step forward in our development and I think we achieved that. And then when we felt finally that we didn't have as much fun in the studio anymore, that there was something missing, we said, "OK, let's do nothing for a while." And that's what we did. I thought we'd hear the occasional (Abba) song, but more or less we'd be forgotten. This is the most fantastic thing of all, that you and I are speaking here today.
I rarely put on an Abba CD. When I turn on the radio and something (we wrote) is played, I listen. That's mostly how I hear (Abba's music). With a few exceptions, from the beginning, it sounds surprisingly fresh. I think that's because we were such perfectionists in the studio - the final mix is the best we could achieve at that time with the equipment we had. In the 70s, recording studios had such better equipment than in the 60s and that's why 60s records sound the way they do. From the 70s onwards they could be from any decade.
Music is universal. You can strike a chord with someone in the deepest jungle in Africa. Having written something way up north, in Sweden, you can still strike a chord anywhere in the world if the music speaks to you. And I think the sound of the two girls (Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Agnetha Faltskog) together, the voices have a kind of exuberant, uplifting quality and it speaks to the whole world.
(The paparazzi are) much, much worse today. It's an incredible difference. They more or less let us be. We were, as two couples, not really interesting - we had more trouble with (the media) after the divorce. I was a bachelor for one week - I got straight into a relationship, which has lasted to this day, so I was boring - but Agnetha was very interesting to the press.