95. You Owe Me One (single b-side 1982)

 

After the release of The Visitors album nothing was the same in the Abba family. The group consisted of two divorced couples, the female members of which were poised to pursue their solo careers and the male members looking forward to their collaboration with Tim Rice to create a musical. In the spring of 1982 they met in the studio to start work on their ninth album, but soon found out that the fun and passion needed was not there. After recording three tracks they put the album plans on hold for good. Only one of these three tracks was deemed worth releasing. 

It was almost a year later that You Owe Me One was released on the b-side Under Attack, their last single for 39 years. At first I loved it, as I loved any unheard Abba track for a while. However you could hear the disintegration of the band in this song. The highly processed vocals of Agnetha Fältskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad failed to disguise the lack of enthusiasm for the song and the sparse arrangement seemed to lack the creative energy that Abba recordings were usually full of. The song itself was fine, but not extraordinary enough to hide the fact that none of the musicians or singers heard on it seemed to have their hearts in it. As the song was not included on any album it fell into oblivion.

But is You Owe Me One as bad as that? Let's clear my ears of any dirt and my mind of prejudice and try to listen to it as if I heard it for the first time.


Listening to this song now I realize that the sadness of the breakup of my favorite band had always colored my perception of this song, the last song they released before their four-decades-long break. However, while there is no denying that the song sounds cold and unengaging, it surprises me how much fun and slightly mischievous at the same time it is. Like many Abba songs You Owe Me One is more complicated than it looks like on the surface. It has countermelodies and other little details going on in the background that reward the careful listener. While the main vocals are cold and indifferent, the backing vocals are beautiful and clever (particularly in the pre-chorus). The vocal arrangement starts sparse but it grows from chorus to chorus.

Therefore although far from being a masterpiece, it is a worthy entry to their catalogue. Abba have several nice surprises hidden on the back sides of their singles, and this is one of them.

Pay attention to:

  • The backing vocals in the pre-chorus
  • The backing vocals in the last chorus
Coming up...Angeleyes

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

107. What About Livingstone (Waterloo 1974)

Image
For the longest time (approximately 45 years) I have thought that this song is sung by Agnetha Fältskog . When I listened to this song again now trying to analyse and pick all the finest details of this song I realized that this is actually Fältskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad singing in unison. This revelation overshadowed almost every other aspect I was expecting to hear from this song.  The vocals of What About Livingstone are one of the purest examples of Lyngstad's and Fältskog's singing voices blending together to create a so called "third voice". You can't really tell one voice from another. To prove this it took me, an avid Abba fan, over 40 years to realize this in this song. On the other hand this is not a surprise. I liked this song when I bought the Waterloo album sometime in 1980 or 1981, but soon after that it fell to the small pit of Abba songs that I don't particularly enjoy. The tune is catchy, no surprise there, but overly bright and perky ton...
Read more

110. Little Things (Voyage 2021, single 2022)

Image
. The fourth single from Abba 's 2021 comeback album Voyage has been a difficult pill for me to swallow. I have really tried to like this song but in the recent ranking of my favourite Abba songs it fell to last place (110th out of 110 songs). Taking the time to stop and really listen to the song made me find things in it to enjoy, but unfortunately it does not change the fact that I cannot think it as a bona fide Abba song As a melody this is very much from Benny Andersson 's songbook of the 21st century. Simple, not overstated but with quirky changes and turns in the melody. As an instrumental it would work well as included on Benny Anderssons Orkester album or second volume of his Piano album. I also love how the delicate piano lines are merged in places with the synthesizer and acoustic guitar.   As wonderful as Agnetha Fältskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad are as singers, the problem for me in this song are the vocals. Their tender take on the song sounds as if they are hol...
Read more

Revisiting Abba as if for the first time

I became an Abba fan some time in 1979 when I heard Arrival and Abba the Album on a cassette tape. The final blow was to see the music video of Gimme Gimme Gimme on television and to see the group apparently (pretending, as I found out later) recording their new song in the studio. Between 1979-1982 I experienced the sensation of hearing each Abba album and each Abba song for the first time. During the 46 year that followed I listened to all the Abba songs tens of times, maybe hundreds of times, but the feeling of hearing an Abba song for the first time was obviously never felt again, not even in 2021 when the new 10 Abba songs were revealed.  Recently I have come across several videos of people, usually American, hearing Abba songs for the first time. It has been a revelation to see the reactions of heavy fans, proggers or classical musicians discover the songs I knew through and through for the first time with mostly awe and surprise.  This has given me new approach to these...
Read more