I love both Abba and The Beatles' songs.
Lennon/McCartney and Benny/Bjorn have been the best songwriter pairings for several decades.
I like early Beatles songs especially where John Lennon's voice is featured.
Abba's "Arrival" album is my favourite one of theirs.

The guys were very late developers... think about it, they are
virtual contemporaries with John and Paul
(Bjorn is only about 2 years younger than Paul !)
Where were they in the 60s ???
Paul John, Mick, Ray Davies were all prolific songwriters,
what were Bjorn and Benny up to during the 60s ?

They finally began to click around 1972 and soon they were
writing the hottest pop music on the planet and even showing
the Brits how to do it !!!!!

I think it's about time they released an EP

1) Just Like That
2) I Am The City
3) Get On The Carousel
4) I Am An A


http://www.musicchartheaven.com/Abba...iscography.htm

three of those songs have been officially released in some shape or form. the songwriters are a bit fussy, when it comes to issues like this.

ABBA were legends. Their singles and most of their albums are pure genius.

However, they're highly unlikely to release any more "rare" recordings, and certainly not in a high profile EP release.

Bjorn's most recently published interview states quite catagorically that there'll be no more unreleased songs. As far as he is concerned, they did all that with the 45 minutes of unreleased material that they brought out (mostly in medley form) in 1993 and 1994.

It's not true also that Benny wrote all the tunes. Bjorn AND Benny wrote the ABBA songs together, and in the early years they both often wrote the lyrics together too, with assistance with song titles from their manager Stig Anderson sometimes as well.

Since the 1990s however, all new Bjorn and Benny projects (and there have been many) feature tunes written by Benny and lyrics by Bjorn. But this wasn't the case during the ABBA or CHESS years. They both wrote the tunes. They were more "collaborative" than Lennon/McCartney in that respect, and for a much longer period.

ABBA was bourne quite by accident. Both Bjorn and Benny had been successful artists in their own right for a decade prior to forming ABBA and had been writing and producing for themselves and other artists before asking their girlfriends to "help out" with some backing vocals.

Now, after ABBA, they continue to work together on new projects and songs every year and seem very happy. Their greatest achievement as collaborators since ABBA is yet to attain worldwide attention - their epic musical Kristina. It has been massive in Sweden, though and has started to get noticed internationally at last.

Bjorn and Benny's writing talent reaches far greater realms than any other surviving pop composers that I can think of.

While in ABBA, they confined their talents a little. Since let loose from the constraints of writing for their ex-wives they've offered so many different styles. And it's a sobering thought that Benny's current folk band have been together longer than ABBA were together - and they're hugely popular in Scandinavia.

Now that Benny can work with this at his own pace, both him and Bjorn find time to work on other musical projects - something there was no time for them to do while the ABBA machine was thundering along at hyper-speed.

But their musical legacy of eight studio ABBA albums crammed with dozens of musical masterpieces, and their incredible recording techniques - not to mention the amazing vocals of Agnetha and Frida, will mean that ABBAs music crosses over so many generations. And that's why it is still so relevant in today's world.

A good song is a good song.

Yes but Bjorn has said that Benny would often give him a tape of the melody that he, Bjorn would take home and listen to it over and over again, sitting by the fireside with a glass of whisky.
This was the case for instance with Waterloo.
Im guessing that Benny could sit at a piano or organ and these amazing melodies would come to him and he got them onto tape.
( Ditto for Brian Wilson )

Looks like it was pretty much the same with Paul Mac too, the tune for eg Yesterday.... came to him out of the blue and he later put lyrics to it.

Elton John however seemed to need lyrics to inspire him.
Bernie would write some lyrics and Elton would put them to music... it became a bit like a factory production line !

But my theory is that Bjorn did write melodies too, as he did in his previous career in the 60s.

Im guessing that he wrote the music for Another town Another train............
maybe Two for the Price of One music and lyrics too.

But my bet is that Benny wrote 80 or 90 percent of the melodies for the Abba songs.

I will be extremely pissed off if they don't include Just Like That on The Visitors Deluxe - 20 years since the revival and they've given us 2 songs from the vault and a medley....I think we deserve JLT for all the years of support - regardless of whether they like it or not - I/we like it

Bjorn and Benny always said that they wrote the songs together, jamming together with a piano and a guitar. There's lots of documented evidence to support that fact. I dare say the main musical motor was Benny, but those ABBA and Chess melodies were definitely written together by both Benny and Bjorn.

Bjorn has said that he often took the backing track home to write lyrics. There wouldn't be any lyrics until the studio track was fully laid down. He said he was drunk on whisky writing lyrics to the Winner Takes It All!

Bjorn and Benny have already given as much of Just Like That by ABBA as they're prepared to release (the chorus included with 1994's "Abba Undeleted" medley). They'll never give us anymore.

To their mind their "finished" version of that song was produced by them for Gemini in 1985, and the discarded verse melody from the ABBA version has now been used in their musical CHESS.

We're not going to see Just Like That included on The Visitors Deluxe, sadly.

i have lost count on how many times i have had to reiterate this point already. hopefully now someone is in agreement with me. people will finally accept that is song is not going to be released!

What happened to the Opus 10 album ?

it was shelved in favour of the third greatest hits album. `abba - the singles - the first ten years` was released with two new songs.

Reading bits and bobs about Abba I get the feeling that
the song....... "Mama Mia" ... is very special for them...a kind of landmark.
After the Eurovision win and all that success, things went a bit
flat... they were n't getting the international breakthrough they had hoped for.

There was talk of Agnetha and Frida resuming their solo careers...
things were beginning to slide...

Then Mama Mia reached No1 in the UK... the capital of pop music.
Bjorn and Benny were overjoyed and suddenly there was no talk of the girls splitting anymore.

Mama Mia was also the song that broke big in Australia and that continent became Abba bonkers.

The spooky thing though is that Abba were battling Queen for the No 1 spot in the UK and their song "Bohemian Rhapsody"
which of course had the line.... "Mama Mia Figaro ..."

the girls both released solo albums in 1975 in sweden. `sos` was their big uk comeback hit which was previous to `mamma mia`. however, the girls did put their solo careers on hold after 1975.

100% agree

Of course, the title OPUS 10 has been discovered was made up by a journalist who was visiting Polar studios while ABBA were recording an album, and the journalist mentioned it was to be their Opus 10 (counting the two Greatest Hits).

But the album they were working on in 1982 was actually untitled. They eventually aborted the album and just released four out of the six fully completed tracks (2 of these just ended up as b-sides to their new singles).

The remaining discarded melodies found their way into the next Bjorn and Benny projects: CHESS and Gemini.

ABBA took a "break" after 1982, and of course that "break" has been forever.

But they never officially split up.

Here Here!!!
Come on.....why should we accept they wont release it??!!
The Gemini version is crap. I agree totally here....the loyal fans are begging for this song.....they should release it to please the fans. Put it on The Visitors deluxe.

i am trying to rise above the ongoing discussion about the unreleased song. there will be no finished version released, that is pretty much fact. i do agree that the left over songs were used elsewhere. that is evident on chess and indeed the gemini album.

Why not join the supporters of getting Just Like That released?!! Why just resign to the fact that it won't be released. You can't knock people for continuing to want it to be released. Its a gorgeous song.

lots of pics among the text

go here
http://www.mediafire.com/?7onw1tf8okodmfc


.

did you not read woutch`s earlier post? i imagine they were referring to the most recent edition of the fan club magazine. where bjorn made his position clear on this very issue. any further discussion or disappointment is futile, considering word has come from the horses mouth!

So if Bjorn 'makes his position clear' we cant still ask for the song?! Is that so sacrilegious to dare ask for it

i think your overrating to be honest. i said i was avoiding the ongoing discussion about this song. you asked me why and i answered.

haha never been accused of that one before
But maybe I am being annoying. I just love that song and I will go to my grave wishing for its release.

i wasn't accusing as such. it was more of an observation on my part. i was originally agreeing with another poster on their informed opinion.

"Tretow has actually said in an interview that JLT was remastered and is sitting, waiting to go. Will probably need to be done again though, as all Abba tracks have been remastered again, 2001, 2005 and 2010"

Can of worms.....