Musicality girl3/27/2023 ![]() ![]() The greatest dissimilarity was perhaps in the four final lines of the second verse, which originally went thus: ![]() Also, in this original mini-musical version there were a few differences in the lyrics here and there. However, this version of the song was a bit more loosely structured and cabaret-like than the studio-interpretation recorded several months later. Agnetha’s first song was ‘Thank You For The Music’. She and Frida had both been decked out with identical costumes and identical golden wigs, to underline the fact that they were both playing one and the same character. The narrator would begin with an introduction in rhymed verse, concluding with the couplet: “And all of a sudden you see her, she’s there! / The girl with the golden hair”. Since only those who attended the concerts more than 30 years ago have ever seen The Girl With The Golden Hair in full, here is a detailed depiction of its structure. When the tour began in Oslo, Norway, on January 28, 1977, every piece was in place for the mini-musical. The part of the narrator went to 24-year-old British actor Francis Matthews of the Royal Shakespeare Company. The solution arrived in the shape of a narrator, presented like a heavily made-up Mephisto-like character, who would appear between the songs to explain the plot points. There was to be no dialogue in the musical, and yet the music and lyrics alone were not quite enough to carry the plot forward. Today, this performance can be viewed on the DVD included with the Deluxe Edition of the Arrival album. This was, in all likelihood, the first public glimpse of this famous song. In a feature in the Swedish news show Rapport, filmed on December 6, Björn and Benny treated the viewers to a few instrumental bars of the chorus of ‘Thank You For The Music’. What they finally came up with was a storyline “about a girl wanting to get famous, becoming famous and then seeing the downside of it,” as Björn puts it.īy early December 1976 at least one of the songs for the mini-musicals had been completed. Quite possibly, there was also the thought of keeping it within the world of music, which the whole group could relate to. By necessity, the plot had to be simple, while still lending itself to dramatic story-telling. After finishing work on the Arrival album, which was released in October 1976, Björn and Benny began putting together what was to become The Girl With The Golden Hair. The plan was to make it a 20–25-minute extravaganza that could end the main show in a spectacular way, before the encores. Since they wanted the tour to offer something more than just a string of hits, they got the idea to put together a mini-musical. When ABBA were planning their first major tour, scheduled to take place in Europe and Australia between January and March 1977, Björn and Benny were provided with the perfect opportunity to dip their toes in stage-musical waters. Why don’t we try this, why don’t we dabble in this for a while?’” Explains Björn: “ Benny and I were talking about how to stretch ourselves, the success of Jesus Christ Superstar was hovering in the background. I got hold of a copy and thought it was astonishing.” First released as a so-called concept album in 1970, the musical was very different to most earlier musicals in that it married a serious, historical subject such as Jesus Christ to modern pop and rock music. “But then I heard Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar”, recalls Benny in the book Mamma Mia! How Can I Resist You? “Stig Anderson, who was managing us and who was one of the leading music publishers in Sweden, had been sent the record long before it actually came out. Neither Björn nor Benny had been great fans of musicals in their younger days. Telling a story with the aid of music and lyrics, and being able to expand beyond the restrictive format of the three-minute pop song, was a highly interesting challenge for them. Ever ambitious and forward-looking, they felt even in those early days that at some point, this would be the logical next step in their development as composers. That dream was to write a full-scale musical. This creation marked the first few steps for ABBA’s song writing team of Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus in realising a dream they had nursed since before the ABBA era. In this feature we take a closer look at the mini-musical that was such an important part of both ABBA – The Movie and ABBA – The Album.Ī girl with a talent for singing, who leaves her home town, becomes a star and then finds herself trapped by fame – that was the simple plot that formed the basis for ABBA’s mini-musical The Girl With The Golden Hair. But even before them, there was something called The Girl With The Golden Hair. Long before Mamma Mia!, the song writing pair of Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus created the musicals Chess and Kristina från Duvemåla. ![]()
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