The Winner Fakes It All
ABBA are back. But what can the response to their slightly odd return tell us about our collective appetite for fantasy in 2022?
In 2021, ABBA announced their unexpected return. And it got me thinking about the story of Bjorn Again, the ABBA tribute band formed by Australian record producer Rod Stephen. It goes something like this: In 1989, the four members found themselves in a helicopter crash that left them stranded on a desert island. By the time they were rescued, they’d convinced themselves that they actually were ABBA.
An ultra-rare case of collective amnesia had wiped away their memories of their past lives, but had left intact their mental catalogues of curious pop ballads. Somehow, their instruments went unscathed too. So when they picked them up to play, the tunes just flowed right out of them.
Though Australian, the group had also taken to speaking in faux-Swedish accents during their tours, which would drag on for months. After the crash, the accents stuck. So you could say that the conclusion they came to — that these were their real voices, their own songs, presumably even their own flares and diamante jackets — was a perfectly natural one. Or, you could call me out and say, “This sounds like a load of crap to me.”
And you’d be right. I mean, the story does exist, but it was concocted by Stephens himself. Only months ago I found a YouTube video called (ABBA) BJORN AGAIN THE DOCUMENTARY, which recreated the incident. It showed a giant platform boot falling out of the sky and colliding with the helicopter, sending it spinning out of control. In terms of production value, think less ‘James Cameron’ and more ’60s Thunderbirds’. It ends with the band sitting around a campfire and singing Fernando in unison.
But before all that, when I first heard the story told by Mark Kermode on his and Simon Mayo’s weekly film review podcast, I’m ashamed to say I took it as gospel. Well, actually no. I’m not ashamed to say it. When I introduced it just then — before the giant flying platform boot, maybe — wasn’t there part of you that was up for believing it too? If that’s a no, I’m genuinely sorry. I don’t mean to insult your intelligence. But if you’re anything like me, then for a second you were willing to suspend your disbelief in favour of a story too good not to be true.
A story that presents a version of the world that’s so unknowable and vast, so full of stranger-than-fiction incidents, that it makes you excited to live in it. In the last year especially, I’ve found that podcasts are amazing at eliciting that feeling in me. And the stories that have done it best are true ones. It just happens that this one wasn’t, but caught me while I was in that podcast-listening mode; while my guard was down and I was halfway through the washing up, primed for a true story I could retell in the pub.
But there are also elements of the story that do have the faint whiff of truth about them. Like it’s just that tiny bit too easy to picture the musicians around that fire, cold and confused, strumming unthinkingly at their guitars and being surprised at how well the words that tumbled out of them fit their current situation.
Can you hear the drums, Fernando? / I remember long ago another starry night like this / In the firelight, Fernando / You were humming to yourself and softly strumming your guitar
There’s an almost autobiographical element to them that might just be enough to convince someone that what they’re experiencing isn’t a memory but a moment of spontaneous invention. And just like that, I’m fantasising again. Convincing myself of justifications for things I know never happened. But can you blame me? This is ABBA’s superpower as far as I’m concerned. They can convince you they’ve lived through everything. Ecstasy; Heartbreak; The Battle of Waterloo. We’ve all collectively accepted that four Swedes’ English-language songs fit perfectly against the backdrop of a Greek wedding, full of Americans who express themselves through Italian expletives. Mamma Mia indeed. And yet, through ABBA’s songs, even those films hold emotional weight.
I’ve always loved The Winner Takes it All, but the backstory is gut-wrenching. Agnetha Fältskog sang the gold standard of break-up songs while midway through a divorce with Benny Andersson in real life. Yet, unbelievably, it’s Andersson who wrote it. They’ve always denied that the song is a mirror, but still, just imagine. You’re wading through the dross of divorce paperwork with a man to whom you’ll always be linked by fame. And one day he shows you a song, from what’s essentially your own perspective, about the pain of watching your lover meet somebody new. It’s crazy to me that Fältskog could even set foot in the studio to record something like that.
It’s either for us or for them that the pair maintain the song’s not charged with their experience, but either way, it’s like they too live in a small fantasy. It makes the song bearable, for them to sing and for us to hear. I think we all do that. I listened to a podcast this morning in which the host said he thinks he once saw Carlos Santana live. “To this day,” he says, “I couldn’t tell you for sure whether it was actually Santana or a Santana tribute band.” His co-hosts are certain it wasn’t Santana. Frankly, that part’s obvious. He describes staying in a hotel with a 200-seater theatre where Santana — usually a stadium-filler — is billed as the headline act. Unlikely. “Everyone [in the audience] was very, very old. Hunched, crooked, lots of carers [and] wheelchairs…” It’s a depressing scene if it’s not Santana. “But the problem is that Santana is essentially in disguise,” he says.
“But no one there seemed to know [if it was him],” he continues. “So they had a perfectly nice time thinking it was Santana.” And then he said something that felt like he was speaking directly to me. “If 200 pensioners watch a Santana tribute band and go home telling their grandchildren that they saw a Santana gig, does it matter? I mean, maybe it was a Santana gig.”
I fully expected ABBA to become a bit of a punchline in September when it was announced that what you’ll see at their 2022 gigs isn’t them as they are now, but digital doppelgangers of them in their prime. I braced myself for the onslaught of headlines making fun of the term ‘ABBA-tars’ (which sounds more like the band’s long-serving metal tribute act, Abattoir) but it never really came. I don’t need to tell you that what came out instead was an amazing outpouring of love.
I think everyone was just so ready for something that could make the last two years bearable. Among the Youtube comments — comments like, “My son is 20 now. I introduced him to ABBA about a decade ago, whenever we’re in the car together an ABBA CD will go on and we’ll be singing out loud together. It’s pure happiness,” and, “Just count the comments, all different languages. That alone should demonstrate ABBA’s worldwide popularity,” — is this one: “ABBA has saved us from Covid. It’s that simple.”
It really touched me to see so many people taking a default stance of celebration on the internet. Not to be an old fart about something that’s never been more crucial, but it can feel like mockery is the go-to response to just about anything online. So the reaction to their comeback announcement made me feel a little bit less gullible and stupid for being the story-hungry fantasist that I am. Because really, is the tale I jumped to believing really any more ridiculous than the truth?
On the one hand, there’s the notion that four members of a tribute band lost their memories and thought they were ABBA. On the other, there’s the news that after 40 years, ABBA are back. But if you go and watch them live, it will sort of be them, but not really. It’ll be their computer-generated clones, frozen in time but puppeteered by the real members from backstage, and it’ll look as though they haven’t aged a day.
I think, frankly, we need that from them. After two years in which time has been robbed from us, the last thing we need is to see the effects of time writ large across the band’s faces. Instead, we need to believe that as long as you have ABBA, time can have no effect at all.
By Louis Cammell
