ABBA single by single thread

I've always wondered how ABBA would have done in Brighton if they had chosen "Hasta Mañana".

 

I never heard "Hasta Mañana" until I finally obtained the THANK YOU FOR THE MUSIC box set around 2002. And then it went largely unnoticed for some reason. The first place I remember hearing the song and really liking it was on the 30th Anniversary of GREATEST HITS in 2006, the one with the cartoon cover. The song wasn't on the American (Atlantic) GREATEST HITS, so it sort of stood out. Of course, Henrik Jonssons loud mastering would make anything stand out!

 

My first exposure to the song "Hasta Mañana" wasn't through ABBA but via Debbie Boone. "Hasta Mañana" was the B-Side of the song "You Light Up My Life" (it also appears on the album of the same name). I liked "Hasta Mañana" much better than "You Light Up My Life" (of course, I eventually took to watching the Billboard chart to see when "You Light Up My Life" would drop out of the Top 40...it was a long wait).

 

Hasta Mañana is a favourite of mine now, much prefer it to Waterloo but no way would they have won Eurovision with it. There's something almost Vera Lynn about the song - it almost rips off "We'll Meet Again".

 

I love that performance! ABBA performed it on the Spanish TV show "¡Señoras y Señores!" in 1974.
Information on the show and on ABBA's performance can be found here: ABBA on TV - Señoras y Señores

Besides "Hasta Mañana", ABBA also performed "Ring, Ring", "Honey, Honey" and "Waterloo".

 

So Long (1974)


B-side: I've Been Waiting for You
Released: November 18, 1974
Charts: #7 (Sweden)

 

This one seems to pass under the radar most of the time, but it's probably my #1 by Abba. From the way out intro right to the end it is top drawer raw excitement.
The girls may be wearing lovely cute satin p u s s y-cat mini-dresses (and I love cats) but that's just a ruse - they are going to chew you up and spit you out!

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
All right, all right, all right, all right
and
The girls might fall for everything you've got
But I'm not one of them, you know I'm not

Their voices here send a shiver down my spine. I love the lyrics and attitude, but I don't know if it's Frida and Agnetha or just Agnetha double tracked.
Also a bit of 1950s doo-wop male backing vocals, and a great rocking piano solo from Andersson. Bjorn's boots are extreme.

A great video performance by all four, though Frida doesn't seem to be totally confident of the words. Love the predatory dancing at the end - I could watch this on repeat.

 

This one was never a hit in Australia. I first heard it on The Singles: The First Ten Years. It's more like a Roy Wood song than anything else ABBA ever did. It's almost too Spectoresque.

 

Does that mean you like it or not? You have carefully avoided committing either way!

 

I love it!!!!!!

 

The only ABBA single I truly hate is the next one I Do I Do I Do I Do I Do.

 

Another UK under-performer. It’s nice and spiky and shows considerable development from the last releases. If there’s a flaw, it’s that it suffers from the shrillness that could afflict ABBA’s records. Still decent, though they weren’t quite there yet. I’ve just realised this must have been the lead single from the ABBA album. But it had Mamma Mia and SOS on it! Wouldn’t they have been better options?

I love the B-side too.

 

A bit of a sidestep.. Have to say it doesn’t fill me with joy either..

 

So Long is an excellent track that incorporates elements of pop, glam rock and even a little doo wop as Gomen Ne has mentioned. I do;t believe this was a single in the US or Canada.

 

I completely agree.

Maybe they thought a rock song would be more successful?

Even still, it's odd that with an album with SOS and Mamma Mia on it, that they were saved for the third and fourth singles. I think it should have gone Mamma Mia, So Long, SOS, I Do x 5.

 

Glad someone mentioned Roy Wood cos that’s my thought too. Fun song though.

 

I think SOS was the point where I really started taking notice of ABBA. It only got to #5 here, but has to be in many people’s top 5 singles of theirs. Fantastic song and the run up to the chorus is still a thing of joy.

I should save this for a bit later, shouldn’t I?

 

"So Long" was included on the ABBA album, but it came out so far in advance of the album that at the time of its initial release it was effectively a non-album single. Wikipedia dates the "So Long" single to November 1974, and the album to April 1975. Maybe "Mamma Mia" and "SOS" weren't finished until closer to the album's release date.

It wasn't. Atlantic decided to release a different song instead, which I assume Tim will be covering in his next post. That single didn't do any better for Atlantic in the U.S. than "So Long" did for Epic in the U.K.

45cat shows RCA releasing both "So Long" and "I've Been Waiting For You" as the A-sides of separate singles in December 1974, with consecutive catalog numbers (102560 and 102561). I'm not sure what the rationale would have been for doing that. "So Long" is shown not charting, "I've Been Waiting For You" hitting #49.

"Hasta Manana" was on the B-side of "So Long", and it was apparently through a re-issue of that single, with the sides flipped, that "Hasta Manana" hit #16 at the height of Abbamania Down Under in 1976.

 

I was totally unaware of "So Long" until I saw it on the DVD of ABBA THE MOVIE. I thought it was just an album track.

 

Another song that was not a single in North America. Fun album track, but I can understand Atlantic passing on this one! Much stronger music to come from this album.
Maybe the "Abbatars" will do this one in concert in 2019?

 

We gotta have "Patience"
Love isn't just a sensation
Some of the time it gets rough
Love isn't easy but it sure is hard enough (lol)