ABBA – "Take A Chance On Me"

Abba’s The Album was one of the first I ever owned; when my parents were out I would put it on and skip around our big rectangular Belgian-made Oriental rug very happily. I don’t have that many happy memories from this time, but that is definitely one of them, being able to play my album on my father’s sound system. A tremendous song too, and an easy 10 from me.

I think we’ve reached the stage now where we can just click our heals and salute Abba as they go marching through. And just for the record, I would have quite happily have taken a chance on either of them. Mind you, this is the last time I shall personally be discussing the Swedes, as by the time they top the charts again, I would have bowed out, hopefully handing the project over to my young (well younger) protégé, who’s far more up on the eighties onwards than I am. I still don’t know if he wants to do it, however.

And here’s another Abba song whose meaning I was able to bend to fit my emotional situation. In this case, we’re back with the object of my three-year long unrequited crush – and here’s where I have to raise a smile at the lyric (“If you’re all alone when the pretty birds have flown, honey I’m still free, take a chance on me”), which casts me as some sort of love-lorn Mister Humphries.

When watching the video, please pay close attention to Agnetha’s small but significant pout at around the 2:17 mark. This was the moment that totally slaughtered the lads in the TV room on Thursday nights (just after supper, just before prep). I well remember the anticipation (“Wait for it, wait for it…”) and the almost post-coital sigh which followed (“She just looks so… easy…”) Hey, none of us got out much.

“And just for the record, I would have quite happily have taken a chance on either of them.”

Fair enough Waldo, but what about Frida and Agnetha?

# 7 – Nice one, Steve!

yeah – also love the idea that they were riffing on ‘Trans Europe Express’ there

So having shown they can do all serious and adult, Abba turn around and prove, not only can they still crank out insanely catchy bubblegum pop, they can do it better than anyone else on the block.

I remember hearing this for the first time (on Swap Shop, I think) and just knowing, within all of 30 seconds, that it would be another Number One. And it was. Truly, there is nothing better in life than a pop group you can rely upon.

I like this OK but I was never that much in love with it, the song itself is good but I don’t care for the “cha-cha-chance” harmonies and the oompah band-ish beat it has at times. It all seems a bit over cooked like one of those singles a band puts out after they’ve conquered the world with a string of hits and the next thing they come out with is eagerly anticipated and you know it’s going to be a big hit the moment it comes out but it seems overproduced and lacking some of the lightness of touch they used to have, now they’re a big budget megaband. It’s like Duran Duran’s ‘Wild Boys’ in that respect. I also find it a little too chirpy, and not in an ‘Uptown Top Ranking’ way, but in a sort of cheesy knees up way.

“Wild Boys” – OUCH. I don’t mind “Wild Boys” but I know exactly what you mean (tho I wouldn’t apply it to this single), that sense of slight deflation when a band doesn’t use its world conquering powers for good. I remember me and all my friends coming home from the record shop, each with our own copy of the Stone Roses’ “One Love” 12″, and the downcast silence that followed the first much-anticipated play.

There is little more satisfying in pop than to witness an artist or group as they approach their creative peak, and during this period Abba were about as perfect as they, or pop, ever got. The genius of “Take A Chance On Me” lies in the artful complexity of its music balancing the direct simplicity of its lyric. In its entreaties towards the object of the protagonist’s desire to shake off the shackles of fear and embark on an unconditional and bilateral love affair, it’s something of a prequel to “The Name Of The Game,” when they have only just entered into the adventure of love; though it was the follow-up to “The Name Of The Game,” it precedes that song on side one of Abba: The Album.

Musically it could almost be an outtake from The Sound Of Music; the nursery rhyme seesawing of the underlying harmony disguises a very canny 12/4 construction, where bass, percussion, main vocals and backing vocals never coincide in quite the same place on each bar line, such that there is the illusion of constant, train-like movement – Trans-Europe Express! – which mirrors the singers’ kind persistence (“You can take your time baby/I’m in so hurry/I know I’m gonna get you” – both Agnetha and Frida seem to bend down towards the listener and wink at them; it is extremely sexy but also exceptionally reassuring). There are so many remarkable touches to the production, such as the acappella intro leading to the detonation of the rhythm halfway through the first chorus (and they actually begin with the chorus, just as in “Dancing Queen”), the lovely shiver of synth halfway through each verse (“We can go dancing/We can go walking/As long as we’re together”) and the New Pop-initiating synth fanfare which blossoms out of their ecstatic “It’s magic!”

“If you change your mind/I’m the first in line” they announce (and it’s a joint lead vocal effort, apart from when Frida bursts forward, solo, into the mix with her “’cause you know I’ve GOT” and “let me tell you NOW” and the fiery passion of her denials of “You want me to leave it there” and “You say that I waste my time” countered by the unarguable, not-up-for-negotiation, you’re going to love and be loved whether you want it or not, because really you want it, and we both know it confidential of “But I think you know/That I can’t let go.” It’s proof that, even at the threshold of their “blue period,” Abba could still be happy and wondrous; and that particular strand of their art reached its zenith in “Summer Night City” later that year – though it only peaked at #5, its sophistication and artistic enterprise puts it at least half a decade ahead of most of its contemporaries, as demonstrated in The Lexicon Of Love (complete with sumptuous orchestral prelude, half “Summer Night City,” half “Prologue” from Scott’s ‘Til The Band Comes In) and elsewhere. For now, however, we can marvel at “Take A Chance On Me” and maybe even worship one of the greatest pop acts at very nearly their greatest.