Just Like That: incompatible untruth?

Hi everyone

I thought I’d share with you some new thoughts on the song that became Benny and Bjorn’s 1982 thorn amongst the roses. In its final sax mix form, I’d regard Just Like That as my all-time favourite ABBA track … but it’s impossible to fully appreciate its merits without hearing the final mix, complete, and to Benny and Bjorn’s painstaking stereo standard.

Like many, I was deeply disappointed when it finally appeared on the TYFTM box set minus the verses. Ripping out the verses also ripped out the heart. That verse melody is one of the most exquisite the boys ever wrote, making the loss of Agnetha’s lead vocal all the more lamentable. It always puzzled me why there was one rule for JLT and another for the rest. The argument that ABBA’s JLT could never be released in its entirety, because fragments (in this case, the verse melody) were subsequently re-used elsewhere, certainly didn’t apply to songs like Dreamworld. I acknowledge this hijacking crossed genre boundaries – recycled for CHESS rather than ABBA – but I’ll never understand why the JLT verse melody alone was treated like a rare creature that needed to be cryogenically frozen until its true value could be fully appreciated.   Anyway, here are my latest musings on JLT.

Most would agree that “Just Like That” was Benny and Björn’s ultimate problem child. Perhaps it didn’t seem so at the time of its creation in May 1982, as it was normal for potential ABBA hits to be reworked and remixed several times over, as this track was. But JLT was different. Written at a time when Benny and Björn’s musical exploration was slowly shifting genres from pop to musical theatre, it’s no real surprise that JLT found itself wedged (uncomfortably as far as the boys were concerned) between the two.

The obvious dilemma facing the ABBA composers – as fans of JLT’s three bootleg incarnations know only too well – was to come up with a strong melody to adorn the neat chord sequence of the refrain. At their third and final attempt to salvage the track they recruited the services of “Baker Street” sax player Raphael Ravenscroft who, despite an excellent performance overall, didn’t quite cut it (dubious improvisation prior to Agnetha’s first verse entry did him no favours). This, together with Benny and Björn’s increasing concerns that the verse melody’s inherently classical feel was perhaps at odds with the more clear-cut pop drive of the chorus, sealed the song’s fate … as far as ABBA was concerned anyway.

Regardless, the ABBA version of JLT works spectacularly well on practically all other levels: a poignant and heartfelt lead vocal from Agnetha, three-part close-knit chorus harmonies a la Swing era songsters The Andrews Sisters, and an intoxicating melancholy throughout thanks to Benny and Bjorn’s masterful use of the minor key.

With the passing of the years, the ‘this-verse-with-that-chorus’ experiments eventually resulted in wedded bliss for the two allegedly incompatible musical set pieces. The mix’n'matching trialled by Elaine Paige and Tommy Körberg during the 1983-4 CHESS recording sessions revealed the ABBA verse/chorus combination was no longer a viable option. The poignant yet exhilarating ABBA verse melody was replaced with a rather sombre minor key alternative (used for the Gemini remake in 1985), which fell short of instilling that irresistible anticipation one feels when an ABBA chorus is about to let fly. The melancholy mood of the Gemini version - while quite appropriate – remains static through both verse and chorus, with little variation in melodic colour.

Despite the cold comfort of the lyric, the ABBA chorus still retained a sense of veiled euphoria, the melodic line peaking with the dramatic “knowing that someday soon he’ll be gone”. This was replaced by a meandering and extended alternative for Gemini (“in a way I was the one to deceive/always expecting the fact he would leave”). There is an unwavering sense of self-pity in Karin Glenmark’s performance, who does her job only too well; it lacks the ever-changing light and shade of the ABBA original (which may go some way to understanding why the Gemini remake failed as a chart single).

The ABBA version – Agnetha’s lead in particular – manages to convey to the listener the ecstatic thrill of the doomed romantic encounter more convincingly than the Gemini makeover. It tugs at your heartstrings … but then the ABBA girls always did.

Fast-track to 2002.  The ballad “Glöm mig om du kan” (from CHESS PÅ SVENSKA) coupled the original ABBA verse with a pleasantly pedestrian new chorus melody, first revealed in the demo “When The Waves Roll Out To Sea” back in the 83/84 CHESS sessions.  Once again, the right balance of light and shade proved crucial, even more so in this rather more theatrical chorus melody. I applaud Swede Per Myrberg’s interpretation here. Injecting a little too much enthusiasm into this chorus could have transformed it into one of those ‘hand-on-heart, we’ll fight to the death’ songs found in comic operetta, which this ballad – and CHESS as a whole – most certainly is not.

I completely understand and respect Benny and Björn’s decision to slice up ABBA’s JLT and reinvent it elsewhere. The two songs that now incorporate the original verse and chorus are recorded for posterity and provide further evidence – not that any was needed – that as songwriters and producers, Benny and Björn are up there with the best.  Despite the bum note in the sax and the immortal lyric “predestinated course”, I champion “Just Like That”, as recorded by ABBA in May 1982, as a refreshingly different, stylistically innovative and consummately performed ABBA classic. It sounds like no other in the catalogue and would have been a worthy addition to the set of highly individual tracks released in ABBA’s final recording year.

Until next time … regards to all.

Chris Patrick

ABBA single couplings: Super Trouper/The Piper

Hello everyone!

Starting this month, I’ll be featuring a series of excerpts from my book … kicking off with a look at my favourite ABBA singles.

2010 marks the 30th anniversary of the SUPER TROUPER album’s release, so here’s an overview of  ABBA’s ninth and final UK number one single, Super Trouper c/w The Piper.

SUPER TROUPER is a more vocally selective album than VOULEZ-VOUS, the self-confident and assertive approach of its predecessor toned down, the lead vocals instead displaying a pronounced contrast in emotional intensity between verse and chorus. The change of personality is most evident on the non-unison tracks, which by now dominated the ABBA musical landscape. The unison lead vocal output had been reduced to only two (On And On And On and The Piper), a subtle hint of the increasingly introspective direction in which Benny and Björn were taking the group sound.

Frida’s lead vocals in the verses of Super Trouper and Andante Andante are soft and reflective, with a distinct increase in power and edge in each chorus. The reverse applies to Me And I, in which the pert flippancy of the verses is replaced by a tender deference in the chorus. Super Trouper was the last-minute emergency number written for the album – written and recorded all within a time frame of three days – yet the intricacy of its production glows like the spotlight to which it pays tribute.

The title track is a song rich in textural contrasts. While As Good As New kicked off the previous album with a surprise string chamber orchestra, Super Trouper marked another ABBA first with its unique a capella vocal introduction. However, these angelic layers did not give way to the disco-inspired undertones that permeated VOULEZ-VOUS. Instead, they segue into a mid-tempo and rather wistful piano and glockenspiel-led refrain, which incidentally comprises the same chords – albeit in different keys – as both the refrain and the second of The Winner Takes It All’s two phrases. (These two songs and their links are discussed in detail in Chapter 27, “The roads to number one”.)

Super Trouper is another illuminating example of ABBA’s ability to paint over an inherently melancholy melodic undercoat with vibrant colours. Benny and Björn were careful not to abuse the immense power of minor chords when it came to melodic construction. The minor moments in the verses of Super Trouper gently complement the harmonic massage of Frida’s milk-and-honey lead vocal, the poignancy of which reaches its height in the bridge linking the second and final choruses. Agnetha follows the melancholy path with a wistfully understated descant harmony vocal in falsetto, which features a subtle variation in harmony in her repeat statement of each chorus.

Super Trouper was the last song to be written before the group’s inner harmony was put to the test a second time. Not only would the masterful balance it struck between joviality and reflection be sorely questioned in the aftermath of John Lennon’s assassination in December, a bombshell from ABBA’s remaining married couple in February was a blow upon a bruise that would have a profound impact on the group’s future musical direction.

The sombre refrain to The Piper marks a return to the atmospheric minor verse/major chorus of THE ALBUM’s Eagle. With the benefit of hindsight, The Piper could be seen to be one of a trilogy of songs that share this common structural – and lyrical – thread, which culminates in the foreboding Soldiers from THE VISITORS. All are musically intriguing, atypically abstract and reflect Björn’s growing desire to share his literary interpretations through ABBA’s music.

These are boldly exposed in The Piper, the lyric of which was inspired by the chilling Stephen King novel, The Stand. In a macabre reworking of The Pied Piper of Hamelin, it tells the story of a man with no face who invades and corrupts people in their dreams, recruiting them for his own sinister purposes. A dark premise for an ABBA song, but the synergy between such text and the music’s fateful shifts in tonality is flawless.

Benny’s GX-1 sets the mood in The Piper’s verses, riding Rutger Gunnarsson’s driving bass with yet another intoxicating sound variation that falls somewhere between a plucked electric guitar and a felt stick tapping a snare drum. The usual potpourri of synth decorations prevails in this, the last ABBA track to feature a unison vocal from Agnetha and Frida. A hint of Swedish folk song can be detected in the chorus’ rousing call to arms, not to mention the ancestral cries of the Irish and the Celts.

The defining element of The Piper is its middle section, which firmly embodies the production’s medieval tone. Enter the roaming end-blown flute (also known as the recorder, the descant – the highest in range – of which is played here), under whose hypnotic spell the voices of Agnetha and Frida fall. With all the reverence of a church offertory chant, the girls deliver the haunting Latin text “sub luna saltamus” (dance beneath the moon), enlivening the protagonists of age-old superstition: witchcraft, ancient stone circles and sacrificial ceremonies, to name but three. At the touch of a keyboard, Benny rolls his own medieval ensemble of sackbut, viol and lute all into one beneath them, and the seduction is complete.

The liberation brought by the song’s major-key chorus is of a far more sinister nature than it pretends. Having transfixed all in his midst, The Piper now sings through the souls of his chosen ones, and their fate is sealed. His doomed followers rejoice in one last exultation of loyalty at the song’s climax, as the forces of evil play their final hand.

Copyright Christopher Patrick 2004-2010

Next month: Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) c/w The King Has Lost His Crown