Dancing Queen – 50 years of inspiration
I made a guest appearance on ABC Radio in Australia tonight, talking about the songs that inspired ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” and the songs inspired by it.
Andrea Ho: This is Nightlife on ABC Radio. Let’s take a moment to go back in time. Let’s go back to nineteen ninety four. And this movie I know you know it. It’s Muriel’s Wedding.
Andrea Ho: This is Nightlife on ABC Radio. All around Australia. Now can you believe it’s been fifty years since that masterpiece came out? It was the lead single from ABBA’s nineteen seventy six album arrival. It was officially released on, depending on where you were in the world August fifteen or sixteen now went to number one in Sweden, obviously, but then number one after that in Britain, Mexico, Belgium, the US, South Africa. Wow. How about that? So what better excuse to hit the dance floor and celebrate this weekend? Someone who’s going to be doing that is ABC Radio exec James O’Brien. He’s going to be joining in the celebrations in Australia. Hello there James.
James O’Brien: Hi there Andrea.
Andrea Ho: People will remember you on the radio from the radio in different contexts.
James O’Brien: And certainly one thing that people in Lismore may remember me from, from forty years ago is I used to host a radio show on the local community radio station, where every week for five years, I hosted a program playing ABBA music. It was called ABBA The Scrapbook.
Andrea Ho: And it would have been quite modern music back then.
James O’Brien: It was. They were still currently releasing songs.
Andrea Ho: Wow. Okay. After that, then you went on to the ABC and the rest is history. So welcome back into the studio. Now, what is it that makes Dancing Queen so good?
James O’Brien: I think it’s a bunch of things going on, one of which it starts with the absolute opener with that piano tune sound, which is so good. It’s a good, feel good kind of song. It’s lovely and innocent, you know? It’s about the girl who’s seventeen years old, and she just wants to go out on a Friday night and dance. And how beautiful is that? I think it’s been one of those songs which has been reinvented over the years too, in lots of different ways, although it’s the original version that is so memorable. And in fact, the song was based on someone else’s song. Back in the seventy four, George McCrae had a song called Rock Your Baby, which you may remember, and they used that as the inspiration for Dancing Queen.
James O’Brien: But over the years there have been lots of other versions too. For example, the earliest inspiration I can find is from Elvis Costello.
Andrea Ho: Elvis Costello did a version. What?
James O’Brien: He didn’t do a version. He really loved ABBA, and he did some versions later in his career. But Oliver’s Army. Let’s have a listen to Oliver’s Army and see if you can connect with the Dancing Queen riff.
James O’Brien: I recognize you can hear the piano.
Andrea Ho: You actually can,
James O’Brien: And it was apparently one of the musicians in his band said, look, we just need something to make this song a little more interesting. And that’s what they did. They basically went back to Dancing Queen, which was a huge hit a couple of years earlier and incorporated it into that song.
Andrea Ho: Wow. Elvis Costello, who knew for all of you music snobs out there, and I know that I count myself amongst you. You and I, we’re friends. There you go. Elvis Costello, even he looked up to ABBA. Okay. Who’s somebody else who we should know a bit more about and who loved ABBA?
James O’Brien: U2
Andrea Ho: Really?
James O’Brien: Back in the nineties, you two were probably the coolest band in the world, weren’t they?
Andrea Ho: They looked down their nose at everybody. Everybody knew it, you know. Bono, the edge, all of them. I don’t see them. And ABBA, even in the same universe.
James O’Brien: Okay, so at the time, they were cool, but ABBA was very uncool. But they performed in Stockholm, and they invited Björn and Benny onto the stage in Stockholm at Global Arena to perform dancing Queen. Have a listen to this.
Andrea Ho: Listener. That is U2 singing “Dancing Queen” and James O’Brien, t he thing I find most fascinating about that clip is not so much that you U2 were singing it, although that is shocking in itself, but it’s that their crowd of fans and people who are attending to see you two knew all the lyrics and sang along.
James O’Brien: Yeah, and that was about the time that ABBA started to become popular again. So a couple of years later, they were featured in the film Muriel’s Wedding, an Australian film, and also Priscilla, Queen of the desert. And so that’s really when ABBA started to go from being very daggy to being popular again. And, you know, I was talking to one of our sports commentators here at the ABC, and he told me about his five year old son who’s obsessed with ABBA. So who would have thought, fifty years after dancing Queen came out, it would still be a big hit song.
Andrea Ho: All right, so who’s somebody else who we should know about? Because lots of people have covered ABBA, of course, but you’ve got some other really great examples.
James O’Brien: Yeah. Another Irish example now, the great singer Luka Bloom and his brother Christy Moore. They also recorded a version which they performed on stage, and they described this version as a traditional Swedish folk song.
Andrea Ho: You know, James, if I had been dropped here by aliens and had never heard dancing Queen. But I knew Luka Bloom’s music, or indeed Christy Moore’s music, which I do, I would have thought that was one of their songs.
James O’Brien: Yeah, it’s a beautiful thing, and it’s got that lovely melancholic feeling about it too. I think that version.
Andrea Ho: And exactly the way that he’s brought it into his style of playing and his style of singing, in fact, his style of storytelling, he brings that Irish storytelling sensibility to his version.
James O’Brien: Yeah. Luka Bloom has done some other great covers. For example, I Need Love by L.L. cool J.
Andrea Ho: That’s actually pretty funny. That is fantastic.
James O’Brien: And also his version of wishing on a Star by Rose Royce. Yes, he’s beautiful as well, you know.
Andrea Ho: I’m going to reassess my view of Luka Bloom. He’s one of the world’s great cover artists. Amazing. Okay. Do you want to try something that sounds a little bit different?
James O’Brien: Yeah. This is possibly my favorite cover version of all time. Of dancing Queen. This was released in about two thousand and four by a Swedish funk band. A jazz trombonist called Nils Landgren.
Andrea Ho: And Nils Landgren is really. Well, I know his music. Yes.
James O’Brien: Have a listen to this version of dancing Queen, which is very, very different.
Andrea Ho: Well, Swedish musician Nils Landgren in the house. James less dancing queen vibes for me. More Tina Turner private dancer vibe.
James O’Brien: It does feel like Private dancer, doesn’t it? Absolutely. But he’s got a whole album called funky ABBA, which has got all these ABBA songs in that, in that kind of style, which is beautiful.
Andrea Ho: So it just goes to show that the song can be done in lots of different ways.
James O’Brien: I’ve heard a bluegrass version. I’ve heard an old style jazz version. If you go onto YouTube and just look for dancing Queen cover versions, there is so much out there.
Andrea Ho: Okay, so it’s quite a resilient song. It stands up to many different treatments. Is this true of all ABBA songs, or do you actually feel that this is perhaps peculiar? Like something special in their oeuvre?
James O’Brien: There must be something special about it. Because I think a billion plays on YouTube or something like that. It’s one of those songs that now, if you are a DJ looking after maybe a forty plus kind of audience at a party or whatever it is, put on dancing Queen and the Floor Will fill and everyone seems to know the words.
Andrea Ho: Which it’s going to do tonight. Yeah. Everybody who’s out and hears dancing Queen because hopefully somewhere everywhere where there’s a DJ playing tonight, they will actually have that on their list. Oh they should. Right. So is it your favorite ABBA song, do you think?
James O’Brien: It’s my favorite? It’s pretty close to my favorite top five. Absolutely. My number one would be the Winner Takes It All, which is that beautiful song about a breakup, their own breakups, and which is just so poignant and wonderful. So that’s probably number one, to be honest, but dancing Queen could be two or three. I think.
Andrea Ho: Okay. It’s not even.
James O’Brien: And it’s because it’s a very different song. You know, it’s still got that lovely, sort of almost melancholic feel about the, you know, the innocence of youth that, you know, and all she wants to do on a Friday night is go out dancing, not sit there looking at her mobile phone.
Andrea Ho: Yeah, I know times have changed, haven’t they? James O’Brien. So glad that you could come in and actually share some reflections on ABBA and dancing Queen for this particular anniversary. I mean, ABBA, beloved by Australians from Muriel’s Wedding all the way through to this particular movie. I think I might leave us with just these sounds. Enjoy the rest of your night. Have a really great Friday night.
James O’Brien: Thank you very much.
Andrea Ho: Thanks so much, John. Thank you. James O’Brien, ABC Radio executive and lover of ABBA.