This was a stately rather than lively piece of work, wintry in tone as well as its video (quite surprising to recall that it was number one in springtime). Not one of my very favourites, but as usual chock-full of quality moments - the boys’ backing vocal “this time I know…” particularly effective. I think it was this backing line that French and Saunders had in mind with their glorious spoof “C’est La Vie” (”c’est good for you, c’est bad for me - quite definitely”).

Reading the thread I’ve been struck by how much it reminds me of the day in May last year when I left my Mum’s house for the last time, having cleared it after her funeral. Walking through the empty house… etc. Obviously the setting was different from the theme of the song, but much of the lyric still applies. It was her widowhood bungalow rather than the house I grew up in, but children - mine - had still played in the old familiar rooms. In those moments before closing the door I thought - it might be a cliché to think of spectral voices at a time like this, but they do echo in your head, which is why it’s a cliché.

To lighter matters: Abba (it’s surely a matter of choice whether you write ABBA in capitals or not, but it does cause me irrational annoyance when people do) played shows in the UK around this time, and Record Mirror’s review began something like this:
“It was the talking point of the night. Everybody around me was amazed by it, some said it was the most extraordinary thing they’d ever seen. It’s Anna’s bum we’re talking about…”
Boy, did that generate some hate mail! But yes, many years before J-Lo this was a talking point wherever they went, to the extent that Agnetha remarks in “Abba The Movie”: “Don’t they have bottoms in Australia?”

Unlike other commentators, I actually think the aching guitar break adds to the song, contributing that note of pathos that the lyrics eschew, as does Frida’s slightly unsteady vocal as she enunciates the heartbreaking lines.

The picture sleeve strikes me as incredibly ironic–all that cheerful togetherness even as this song hints at what was already going on within the group. That “Knowing Me, Knowing You” was, in some sense, the beginning of the end for ABBA has always added to the sorrow (mixed with empathy and appreciation) that I feel whenever I hear it.

“Knowing Me, Knowing You” is a 10 if there ever was one, for me, now in Month Six of a love affair with Abba that shows no sign of letting up any time soon. Despite some sorta hokey moments (”Good days….bad days”) it achieves a perfect, depressed plausibility. Resignation is tough to do in pop without it turning absurdly maudlin, and in lesser hands “There is nothing we can do” would sink the whole affair - but “Knowing me, knowing you” makes it stab rather than drag. The “Ah haaaaaaa” is a bit funny from a distance… weirdly warm, almost seductive. In the midst of the recording, though, it’s as if the narrative is drawing you into its world, so that the piercing crystalline cry that follows can achieve maximum impact…

Have we mentioned the video yet? I couldn’t see much above on a quick skim (although I’m sure MC has commented on it on FT in another context). It’s arguably even more iconic than the song.

Man.

#20 Yes the b-side of the splendid SNC is indeed the horrendous folk medley and goes a long way to undo some of the good made by the a-side.

I like I’m A Marionette too, and the other Girl With The Golden Hair songs. So I’m being unjust to it obviously!

Though I also really enjoy the loopy ‘I’m A Marionette’.

On a completely different Abba tangent altogether, Mark Eitzel does a fantastic version of The Winner Takes It All – but, alas, it only exists in my head. Especially on the “But tell me does he kiss…” bit.