ABBA single by single thread

Watching that video without sound is actually hilarious.

 

Yeah, my parents. Educating and terrorizing the next generation! But somehow this has ended up as my favorite ABBA album as an adult. (But I know we will talk about that later in the thread.)
Maybe more sinks in the mind of a child than we think. Definitely a lyrically grown-up song, not a stitch of Dancing Queen to be found, MOM!

 

My favourite ABBA album too. But yes, more on that later.

 

I strongly suspect you´re not thinking of the Agnetha-led "BABY" version? Thought so...

 

Yes, I´m getting a bit slow in my old days. I am in my dotage, as you know... But thank you for the welcome.

 

I think "CHIQUITITA" gets a lot more criticism than it deserves. It seems out of place on "VOULEZ-VOUS", and I sometimes skip it, but I also love the track. I have outlined the reasons why before - I´ll cut and paste from Bobby´s excellent Voulez-Vous thread:

"Cue... another poll. I´ll be there to share my prejudices. (Have to warn you, though, that I do love "CHIQUITITA", though I tend to play it less often than the other tracks. I consider it a classic ABBA song - lovely structure, great elements add up to a very good song. Having said that... Perfection - of a kind - is something you don´t need to hear that often. Same with Cliff´s "MISS YOU NIGHTS" and "WHEN TWO WORLDS DRIFT APART" - I love and admire the songs, but I can´t hear them too often. I don´t want them to lose their impact.)"

Benny is a big fan of the song - not the Cliff songs I mentioned, I fear - and I agree that it´s one of their best songs, structurally and melodically. But I have to be properly motivated to play it, and that happens less often than with most other ABBA songs. Still, a great song.

As to "AS GOOD AS NEW"... It´s one of my all time favourite ABBA songs, and it was devastating to read Benny´s comments about it in the revised version of Carl Palm´s "COMPLETE RECORDING SESSIONS". He referred to the song as forgettable and unneccessary! And here´s me enjoying it more than most ABBA songs!

I love Benny and his music. He´s really a great guy. But I have got to stop reading his opinions about his own music. He doesn´t like "AS GOOD AS NEW" or "GIMME! GIMME! GIMME!", which are both favourites of mine.

 

Chiquitita is easily one of my all-time favorite ABBA songs and i prefer it over Fernando. Simply brilliant.

 

Whew...took me a while but I finally got caught up. Great thread about a band that doesn’t get a lot of respect, but cranked out an amazing number of classic pop hits.

I’ve said it before, but I appreciate everyone’s input - there are some serious musical minds here. I always learn something.

 

Wasn’t aware he didn’t like Gimme Gimme Gimme..

I’m jumping the gun, but I think the verses and instrumental structure of the song is brilliant. Certainly one of their best intros...

However, the chorus is a bit weak. I mean, it works and all but after the build up it’s a bit of a letdown.

Still love it of course.

 

Well, I think As Good As New is one of their best songs so don’t feel bad. I love that little refrain that leads into the last chorus. That’s what made them so good...they would insert tiny little things like that which would add so much to their songs. Most bands would say “good enough” and call it a day, but I think they would spend a great deal of time trying to add little subtle details that would make their songs very special. Good enough wasn’t. And sorry to Chiquitta fans...was never one of my favorites. Great vocal performance, great production. Why it isn’t a favorite I don’t know. I think it’s out of place on that album too. But it certainly isn’t bad...they made few of those!

 

As Good As New: I don't like this song. the tune of the chorus is not too bad, but the verse melody is boring.

Voulez-Vous (the song) is the other way around - decent verses, lousy chorus. One decent song could have been created by combining the verses of one with the chorus of the other.

I think ABBA allowed themselves to be too heavily influenced by disco at this point. Disco is not necessarily bad; the problem is that it's very easy to write a bad disco song, because all that's required is that it has the right rhythm.

 

Chiquitita
I like this but it's not one I like to hear as often as some of their songs. Beautifully arranged and performed tho.
3/5

 

Ah ... the golden age before pop music became ultra-slick and processed and pop stars were all coached to dance!

 

Abba were canny and knew how to woo an international audience: Chiquitita, Fernando, SOS, Waterloo, Voulez Vous, Bang-A-Boomerang, Hasta Manana, Mamma Mia - it worked.
Are there any song references to their homeland (aside from the Summer Night City video)?

 

...or coached not to dance.

 

Does Your Mother Know (1979)


B-side: Kisses of Fire
Released: April 27, 1979
Charts: #4 (United Kingdom), #19 (United States), #7 (Australia)

 

I love this song. It's always been one of my favourite ABBA songs. I've always liked how Bjorn finally got a single to himself (excluding Rock Me which was only released in a handful of countries) and how it's one of the few ABBA rock songs post "Arrival". It's a catchy and enjoyable song with a great vocal performance and lyrics. The guitar riff's great too.

 

I had a long memory in 1979. I kept waiting for "Chiquitita" to come out as a 45 in the U.S. Instead, when a new ABBA single finally emerged, in May 1979 (though I probably first heard it in June), we got "Does Your Mother Know."

Despite what appears in retrospect as Atlantic's mishandling of the group, with more than a year passing before it chose to follow up "Take a Chance on Me," the suits felt otherwise; the new ABBA album, Voulez-Vous, became the first released LP in its "superstar" tier, with an $8.98 list price, a dollar higher than normal (catalog number SD 16000). Curiously, after three straight international 45s that were either canceled or passed over in the States, the one that finally was released was the most atypical ABBA single ever, at least from my perspective. Indeed, whenever we have threads asking us to point out the most anomalous songs in a band's catalog, I usually post "Does Your Mother Know." It was the only U.S. ABBA hit to feature Bjorn on lead vocal.

I enjoyed "Does Your Mother Know" in the summer of 1979; I think it made my personal top-10 charts. Looking at the other hits during my definition of that summer (the break between my freshman and sophomore years in college -- mid-May to the end of August), the first half was dominated nationally by "Hot Stuff" and "Bad Girls" by Donna Summer and the second half by "My Sharona" by the Knack. I look back at that summer today, and frankly, it was one of the best of my life. The music was pretty good, too: a few of my favorites were the aforementioned "Hot Stuff" and "My Sharona," plus "When You're in Love with a Beautiful Woman" by Dr. Hook, "Mama Can't Buy You Love" by Elton John, "Don't You Write Her Off" by McGuinn, Clark & Hillman, "I Want You to Want Me" by Cheap Trick, and "Gold" by John Stewart, just to name a few. I've grown tired of the Knack song over the years, but it sure did sound good in '79.

Billboard made "Does Your Mother Know" its lead entry in the May 19, 1979 Top Single Reviews. It wrote, "The latest from the Swedish foursome is a fun, rollicking number along the lines of last year's 'Grease' singles. The sweet, airy vocals contrast effectively with the rocking instrumentation." A front-page review in the same week's Record World enthused, "This buoyant pop-rocker is destined to become a classic. Bjorn's exuberant lead vocals get superb choir-like support from the women." A combination of pent-up demand and its danceable, but un-disco-like, beat helped propel the song up the charts. In the end, though it made the top 40 quickly, "Does Your Mother Know" peaked around the same position in all three trade papers -- #16 in Cash Box, #17 in Record World, and #19 in Billboard. For the first single from a highly anticipated new album, this had to be a disappointment for Atlantic. The song proved too heavy for middle-of-the-road radio, for it got to only #41 on Billboard's now-renamed Adult Contemporary chart.

Atlantic issued "Does Your Mother Know" (catalog number 3574) with a picture sleeve, which in 1979 was still highly unusual for the label. Before this 45, the last single on Atlantic with a picture sleeve was "I Want Your Love" by Chic (catalog number 3557). Typical of most sleeved ABBA singles in the States, some copies had the photo sleeve and others did not; probably two-thirds of the 45s had it. It's probably a 2 to 3 in rarity on a scale of 1-10.

As was true in most of the rest of the world, "Kisses of Fire" was the B-side in the U.S. Copies of the 45 were pressed by Specialty (SP) on vinyl and Monarch (MO) and PRC (RI) on styrene. The first pressing of the single from all three plants has no album credit; second pressings from both SP and RI contain the catalog number in regular print (From Atlantic LP 16000) and LP title in quotes, capital letters and boldface ("VOULEZ-VOUZ").

Promo copies were mono/stereo and came from SP and MO. Also, there was a white-label "rush" pressing from Specialty with no label graphics, also mono/stereo. None of the promos have an album credit.

 

Yes, I like this one too. A great little rocker and a welcome relief after the 30 minute long Chiquitita.

I didn’t buy the single as it was very close to Voulez-Vous being released and I decided to get that instead. I’d just started work at that point and could buy albums whenever I wanted. It was great.

I like the B-side too. Very catchy in the best ABBA style.

These were the charts for the week the single peaked at #4. The #1 album is pretty good too.

 

Some information taken from the book 'The Complete Recording Sessions' by Carl Magnus Palm:

Does Your Mother Know (working title: I Can Do It):
Backing track on 6 February 1979.
Sax overdubs on 12 February 1979 (this track was used for the special 'ABBA in Switzerland')
Mixing on 1 March 1979.
Final version for the Voulez-Vous album on 27 March 1979.

A daring tribute to cross-generational flirting in big city nightclubs. Like 'Voulez-Vous', 'Does Your Mother Know' was a disco track when it was released, but on 6th February it was more of a boogie-rock stomper, and a full 30 seconds longer with an introduction building up with drums, bass, piano, and then guitar. "We had seen Rod Stewart in concert in Leicester in December" remembers Ola Bunkert, "and his drummer Carmine Appice did some drumming which I thought was kind of cool. When we were to record 'Does Your Mother Know', Benny asked my to do some solo drum bars for the intro, and then I remembered what Appice had done, and sort of copied that. I liked the fact that the song would start with drums only, because that was a bit unusual for ABBA. and I was a bit disappointed when they eventually cut that from the track." Also several attemps were made to record the song with Agnetha and Frida on lead vocals instead of Björn. "I thought the song was a potential hit , and we really were a bit reluctant to have me as the lead vocalist on a single, says Björn. "For song reason, I sang it anyway, and I think that was a big mistake. The recording would have benefitted from focussing more on the girls' voices."

ABBA performed the early, rockier version of the song on the TV special 'ABBA in Switzerland':

 

'Does Your Mother Know' entered the UK charts at number 19 the week ending 5 May 1979.
The following week, it jumped to #4, a position that it held for 3 weeks, before dropping to number 6 and leaving the top 10.

The top 4 for the week ending 12 May 1979:

01 (01) Art Garfunkel - BRIGHT EYES
02 (03) M - POP MUZIK
03 (04) Boney M - HOORAY HOORAY IT'S A HOLI-HOLIDAY
04 (19) Abba - DOES YOUR MOTHER KNOW

... and 2 weeks later (as posted above by Bobby):

01 (10) Blondie - SUNDAY GIRL
02 (07) Roxy Music - DANCE AWAY
03 (02) M - POP MUZIK
04 (04) Abba - DOES YOUR MOTHER KNOW

 

In Europe, 'Does Your Mother Know' was not as big as most of ABBA's other hits, though it reached the top 10 in 7 countries. In Germany, it peaked at #10, ABBA's second lowest ranking single in that country up to that point ('So Long' had peaked at #11 in 1975).

To me it's surprising that it had quite a good chart run in the US, compared to other ABBA singles. With 10 weeks in the top 40 and a #19 peak, it did better than 'Mamma Mia', 'Money Money Money' and 'Chiquitita'.

In Canada, it peaked at #12 on the RPM Chart and at #2 on RPM's Adult Contemporary Top 40.

 

The song was featured in the Rowan Atkinson film 'Johnny English':

 

Though 'Does Your Mother Know' is among my least favourite ABBA singles, I like the fact that they took a risk by releasing a song that featured Björn on lead vocals.

To me, the B-side 'Kisses of Fire' is much better. I love the slow intro before it bursts into a disco stomper. The song was performed on the 'ABBA in Switzerland' special:

 

I like the way bits of Does Your Mother Know crop up in Dreamworld.

Or is it that bits of Dreamworld crop up in Does Your Mother Know?