Love ABBA, love this song.

Like Swanstep, I would give the song a 10.

As in many things Abba, Muriel’s wedding is a good guide. There Fernando gets us all the way from the holiday resort, back to Porpoise spit, through several stages of Muriel being dejected and terrible, and all the way to Sydney, City of brides and Muriel reinvented as Mariel. It’s a brilliant piece of film-making, for sure, but it draws directly and almost plagiaristically on all of the fancifulness and pleasure that the record crams in. The song has both scale and wit, and the film knows that and uses the lot.

And what a b-side! Dance (while the music still goes on) is bloody fantastic. If they make a film sequel to Mamma mia, it’s my personal pick for a lead number to be v. strongly featured… perhaps even used as a new episode title, and as a spur to upgrade the choreography from the somewhat exasperatingly pedestrian stuff of the original stage show and movie. Dance(WTMSGO) is somewhat reminiscent of the Beachboy’s magical ‘Don’t Worry baby’. That was the B-side of ‘I get around’. I think Fernando/Dance(WTMSGO) deserves to be recognized as one of the greatest A/B-side singles of all, up there with I get around/Don’t worry. (Any songwriter would give his or her left whatever to have written any one of these four songs, let alone a pair of them.) The 5 bazillion Aussies and Kiwis who bought Fernando/Dance(WTMSGO) *could* be wrong (they had ‘Best of Abba’ w/o Fernando on it whereas uk and elsewhere had ‘Greatest hits’ w/ Fernando on it. Fernando wasn’t on an album down under until Arrival came out at the end of 1976. So Fernando has a special place in our hearts – it was a truly monster, pure single that one had to buy in parallel with the Best of Abba album which was at the top of the album charts for most of the year. Some opening act for Dancing Q. and Arrival, huh?). They *could* be wrong, but they aren’t:
10

I like Boston. (Fond memories of eating sushi at Legal Seafood, also of sitting in a bar watching the Red Sox clinch the American League playoffs – that should date it for you!) My friend (whose loyalty was admittedly to Philadelphia) claimed it was the most civilised and corrupt city in American, and home to the second-worst driving standards in the world. Worse than Paris, worse even than Lagos, and only marginally behind Yerevan, Armenia!

Waldo: Chaotic, for sure, but not very cheerful…

Boston is nice (where I am), the closest you’ll get to Europe in the USA.

However, it was undoubtedly the indicator that they were here to stay. Previous Abba singles, like “So Long” and “I Do X5″ were much better, but there were no Abba-fans to buy them and make them into hits. However, the success of “Mamma Mia” created Abba-fans who then automatically bought the next single. It’s not as simple as that, obviously, but they were here to stay, and thankfully their future hits were (in the main) far superior.

This to me is just unremarkable; it’s not compelling enough for me to worry about which war it’s about, or even if Fernando can indeed hear the drums. A bog-standard 5.

Not as bad as the next one, mind.

Krakow has seemed the obvious choice in the six years since I fell in love with that city, but I’ve long fancied Buenos Aires. Somewhere cheerfully chaotic anyway. Any suggestions?

GIRL: I dreamed that you were having sex with me last night.

BILLY: (Suprised): Really?

GIRL: (Genuinely angry): It was horrible!

I thought Fernando was about the Spanish Civil War too. But then I never paid too much attention to Abba lyrics, because Abba songs were never really about profound messages. I wonder if it really matters?

Re: #9. “I suspect that possibly only Abba could have got away with singing a campfire anthem on behalf of the vanquished.” That’s an interesting observation. It gives the song an emotional depth a casual listener – like, say, someone who thought this was about the Spanish Civil War – might easily overlook.