The Complete Recording Sessions:
Updates and corrections

Here you will find updates and corrections relating to my book ABBA — The Complete Recording Sessions. Some of the errors and omissions I have discovered myself, some have been pointed out by others. Special thanks to Patrick Smith, Ireland, and Björn Waldenström, Sweden, who provided many of the corrections. Several of these corrections and updates were first published in an earlier form in the Agnetha Benny Björn Frida Fan Club magazine.

I have not included CD availability updates to the Discography & Track Guide. If you are interested in ABBA, you are probably aware that a significantly increased number of tracks have been made available on CD since the publication of The Complete Recording Sessions in 1994 (see, for instance, The ABBA Remasters and The Complete Studio Recordings sections at this site).

In many picture captions in the book, the name ABBA has been spelt Abba. This is obviously not consistent with the rest of the book. There are a few other minor spelling and printing errors throughout the book. These have not been included here.

Should you have noticed other errors or omissions, or feel you have reason to question any of the information in the book, you are welcome to contact me via the e-mail link at the top of the page.

Page Update/Correction
6 First paragraph: The Hootenanny Singers' Jag väntar vid min mila single and EP were both released in 1963, not in 1964.
9 Second paragraph: The English title of the soft porn film to which Björn and Benny contributed soundtrack music was of course The Seduction Of Inga and not Inga II. The latter title was only a working title which was changed before the movie was released.
9 Third paragraph: The TV special Björn and Agnetha were participating in when they met was called Räkna de lyckliga stunderna...
9 6th March 1970
EMI Studios. Recording 'Där Du Går Lämnar Kärleken Spår'; 'Du Var Främling Här Igår'.

The second Anni-Frid Lyngstad single to be produced by Benny contained Swedish versions of the Edison Lighthouse UK chart topper 'Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)' and the Dusty Springfield hit 'I Close My Eyes And Count To Ten' respectively. The session sheet does not mention any piano player, so it is likely that Benny handled that chore himself.

Comments: This is a completely new paragraph. I had access to this information, and the session was meant to be included in the book.

11—13 The correct title of the cabaret/floor show is Festfolk, and not Festfolket.
13 This refers to the picture of Agnetha and Björn as well as some of the commentary text for the 25th May 1971 entry: Agnetha and Björn were married on 6th July 1971, not 7th July. This was also information I had access to prior to even sitting down and writing the book, and since most ABBA authors have got this date wrong, I was particularly delighted to publish the correct date. Don't ask me how I managed to get it wrong anyway. However, the correct date has been included in my later ABBA books.
14 12th July 1971 entry: The original English title of Frida's Min egen stad was It's Nice To Be Back, not It's So Nice To Be Back.
17 29th September 1971 entry: The title of one of the Lena Andersson songs mentioned here is incorrect. The correct title is 'Världen som var min'.
19 Referring to Agnetha's participation in the Swedish stage version of Jesus Christ Superstar in the 4th February 1972 entry: Maria Magdalena is the Swedish name for Mary Magdalene. Since this is an English language book, Mary Magdalene is more appropriate.
29 10th January entry: It seems the claim that Anni-Frid was called Frida on the foursome recordings from the moment the Ring Ring singles were released, was somewhat premature. Apparently, the initial pressings still had the group labeled as Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid, and it was presumably only when the Ring Ring album was released that Anni-Frid became Frida on albums and singles alike.
32 23rd July entry: The Spanish Ring Ring lyrics were written by Doris Band.
33 2nd paragraph: The 1973 folkpark tour ended on 9th September, not on the 7th.
36 18th December entry: Stig was not in Majorca but on the Canary Islands when he came up with the title for Hasta Mañana.
42 22nd July entry: The claim that Agnetha's Elva kvinnor i ett hus album consisted of completely new material apart from SOS is of course not entirely true, since Mina ögon was a Swedish version of ABBA's Disillusion, albeit with a new backing track.
50 21st February entry: Added information on I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do: On the CD Os Grandes Successos, there is an extended version of this song lasting 4 minutes and 24 seconds as opposed to the 3 minutes and 15 seconds of the familiar version. Exactly when and how the extended version was made is unknown. I am also uncertain whether Os Grandes Successos is a legal CD.
52 Third paragraph: Lasse Hallström did not direct all of ABBA's promotional clips and videos. The On And On And On video was made up of stills taken by Anders Hanser during ABBA's 1979 tour. The last two videos — the ones for The Day Before You Came and Under Attack — were directed by Kjell Sundvall. There were also a couple of clips originally made for television.
56 17th November entry: ABBA's version of Fernando was only added to later versions of the Greatest Hits album in Norway. The album then acquired the new catalogue number Polar POLSX 266.
58 March entry: ABBA's version of Fernando was released by Polar in early April in the Nordic countries, not in March. The March date was of course only a guesstimate on my part, since the information given to me from Polar was less than reliable (see Introduction, page 5).
61 Since publication of the book, I have learned that Dancing Queen was performed for the first time on the German TV special The Best Of ABBA, taped in January 1976, and not in the tribute gala to King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen-to-be Silvia Sommerlath on 18th June. It was also performed on the export version of the Australian TV special The Best Of ABBA (the same title as the German program, but an altogether different show), taped in March 1976.
63 Paragraph before 1st November entry: ABBA's 1976 promotional visit to the United States did not last for three weeks, but only for 13 days.
69 The top picture caption is of course wrong. ABBA — The Movie was made in 1977 and not in 1976.
71 The facsimile of the Love For Me Is Love Forever lyrics — which metamorphosed into Move On — state that the words were written by John Spalding. Lest there be any misunderstandings: This was of course an in-joke. John Spalding is a longtime business partner of Stig Anderson, and had nothing to do with these lyrics.
74 13th December entry: The new mix of Take A Chance On Me was possibly made for playback TV appearances. It was, in any event, never commercially released.
82 29th September entry: Since the book was published, additional information regarding Cryin' Over You has surfaced. A proper backing track as such was not recorded for Cryin' Over You, which was only a demo recording. Michael Tretow provided Björn and Benny with a tape loop drum track, while Benny played keyboards and Björn sang.
83 4th December entry: More information regarding the early version of Chiquitita. At this stage, the song was entitled In The Arms Of Rosalita, featuring Agnetha and Frida taking turns to sing the verses. In the lyrics, both girls address themselves to a lost lover who now prefers to be "in the arms of Rosalita". The arrangement was somewhat heavier and slower than the released version, featuring some quite effective humming parts from all four members of the group. The melody also included a bridge, the chord structure of which was removed and then tagged on as the fade-out ending of the song when it was re-recorded on 13th December.
89 10th May entry: A small grammatical error here. Frida, of course, was among the singers overdubbing backing vocals for the Finn Kalvik tracks.
90 21st June entry: Regarding Sång till Görel, it seems unlikely as few as 50 copies were pressed. Too many copies are circulating on the collector's market for this to be plausible. A guesstimate from an insider is "at least 150 copies". 200 copies were pressed of the 1981 tribute recording for Stig Anderson, and the number of copies of Görel's single was probably nearer to that figure than to 50.
91 August entry: The Polar single release was billed as 'Voulez-Vous'/'Angeleyes', not the other way around.
92 October entry: The Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)/The King Has Lost His Crown single should have an (*) attached to it. The Polar edition of this single was not released in Sweden. The single did appear on the Swedish singles chart, but that was purely from sales of imported copies of the UK Epic single.
93 In the second paragraph on this page, I happened to omit Switzerland and Austria from the listing of countries ABBA visited during their 1979 tour. In the third paragraph I referred to the compilation album Äntligen Sommarlov!, although I happened to leave out the "lov" part of the second word in the title. This mistake reappears in the track Guide on page 126, although I did manage to get it right on page 122.
96 12th February entry: The musician credits for On And On And On are missing here. The musicians were Benny Andersson (keyboards), Janne Schaffer (guitar), Rutger Gunnarsson (bass), Ola Brunkert (drums).
102 3rd October entry: It appears that there were never any plans to call the Super Trouper album Piccadilly Circus. This was just the intended location for the album cover photo shoot, nothing else.
104 4th November entry: When ABBA appeared on the West-German TV programme Show Express in November 1980, they did not perform six songs. This piece of information was incorrectly reported in ABBA Magazine at the time, and was probably based on a list of songs ABBA would have taped for a German TV special they planned to do at the time. This ultimately did not happen, and ABBA instead ended up doing three songs for a live link-up broadcast on Show Express: The Winner Takes It All, Super Trouper and On And On And On.

On the same day, they also taped a playback performance of Happy New Year, which was shown by Swedish Television on New Year's Eve for several years after. The same performance, preceded by a fake phone conversation with the hosts, also appeared on a New Year's Show on French TV.

ABBA had already been in France for promotion when they received the kidnap threat against Björn's and Agnetha's children. Contrary to what was printed in The Complete Recording Sessions, then, there was no need to cancel any appearances in France.
106+107 16th-19th March entry: The correct title of Björn and Benny's hockey tune is Fanfare For Icehockey World Championships '81. Thanks to Love Eklund for this correction.
110 There is a caption missing for the bottom picture, which is the original chord sheet for Like An Angel Passing Through My Room.
115 24th November entry: There was never any video made for Se Me Esta Escapando. The only Spanish video from the Visitors period was No Hay A Quien Culpar.
117 18th March entry: Not all the songs on Frida's Something's Going On album were written especially for the project, one example being To Turn The Stone, which was taken off the unreleased Donna Summer album I'm A Rainbow (belatedly released in 1996). However, if I'm correctly informed they were all songs that had not been heard by the general public prior to this album's release (except for You Know What I Mean), and were the result of invitations to submit compositions for the project, as opposed to the result of going through what different publishers may have lying in their drawers.

Update December 1998: It seems the whole story of "exclusive compositions" can be disregarded. Here We'll Stay is another track that had most certainly been made public, since it was in fact an entry in the United Kingdom's selection for the Eurovision Song Contest in 1980. It was performed by a singer called Sonia Jones and finished eleventh out of twelve entries.

119 20th August entry: The book states that Benny is the only musician on The Day Before You Came, except for a snare drum played by Åke Sundqvist. This is not correct, since an acoustic guitar — probably played by Björn — is audible on the recording, albeit faintly.
125 Since Merry-Go-Round was remixed for Japanese single release, the following information should be inserted between Merry-Go-Round and Santa Rosa in the Track Guide: "Merry-Go-Round, remixed version, Japanese single A-side, 1972."
126 The edit of The Name Of The Game did not receive its first commercial release on the American K-Tel album The Magic Of ABBA in 1980. That album included the regular single and album version, and it seems the edit was first commercially released on The Singles - The First Ten Years in 1982.
126 The confusing text attached to No Hay A Quien Culpar and Se Me Esta Escapando was of course meant to explain that these were Spanish versions of When All Is Said And Done and Slipping Through My Fingers, respectively, and that they were released on the The Visitors album in Spanish language territories.
126 The following information should be inserted between Lovelight and I Am The City in the Track Guide: "Voulez-Vous, edited version released in 1992 (AG).".
127 Those of you interested in studying the acknowledgments may have wondered who on earth this Michael Berglund character is who is listed as an interviewee, yet doesn't seem to have any connections to ABBA. Well, if you looka little further up, under the heading "I would like to extend my warm thanks",etc. you will find the name Mikael Berglund — Mikael spelt with a "k". This is a personal friend of mine who supplied me with some material during research for the book (and who also helped me put together my first website). Unfortunately, his name got lost on the computer disk with my original manuscript. The publisher, under hard pressure to get the book finished for autumn release, managed to include it in two places when I asked them to add it to the acknowledgments page.

 

  





 
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