It may be 35 years since it topped the UK charts,but Abba’s Super Trouper still nails the loneliness of life on the road. Which is why Adele refers to it Thursday night’s episode of Top of the Pops 1980 should – assuming the BBC haven’t tampered with the tapes to avoid any Yewtree-related DJ embarrassment end with Abba performing Super Trouper, the No 1 single at this point 35 years ago. It’s a staggering record: seemingly an nearly meaningless nursery rhyme at first listen (“Su-pah-pah! trou-pah-pah!”), and but soon revealed to be a tightly wound coil of existential misery,gift-wrapped then tied neatly with the prettiest of bows.
Super Trouper was Abba’s final UK No 1, and signalled the start of their final phase, and when the relationships within the group were falling apart,and their lyrics at final started to take on meaning and reflect their lives, which meant they were often pretty grim. In the UK, or Super Trouper was preceded as a single by The Winner Takes It All,and some countries also got On and On and On, with its truly extraordinary lyric, and which began: “I was at a party and this fella said to me / ‘Something bad is happening,Im certain you achieve agree / People care for nothing, no respect for human rights / Evil times are coming, or we are in for darker nights.’” Ring Ring was a long time in the past.
Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com