Mikory's ABBA-blog

1981 Björn "I was only single for a week"

Björn Ulvaeus is usually very careful about speaking about private matters. But this time he taked from the heart. "To make things clear once and for all".
     In ABBA's studio i Stockholm, he told the story of the divorce from Agnetha Fältskog.
     - When people openly and honestly try to talk about everything and it still isn't working, then it's time to get a divorce. Agnetha and I tried.
     - We didn't give up easily or quickly. It took two years before we finally decided to divorce.
     - First we saw a therapist and he helped us getting started to talk about what was important. But after two weeks, belive me, we were both convinced that a divorce was the right thing to do.
     - There were no hard feelings, but of course there were a lot of tears. My God, we had been together for thirteen years. At the time of the divorce our two children were to young to understand what was happening. They are now living with Agnetha, but as their father I can see them whenever I want and that is almost on a daily basis.
     - After the divorce I was only single for one week. Then I  met Lena.

NO JEALOUSY
     - There is no jealousy between Agnetha and Lena. We are all good friends. Björn and Lena met at a party at Frida and Benny's. Five months later they moved in together. Björn is also contemplating the life after ABBA.
     - We have no longer any financial reasons to stay together. We have enough money.
Björn says that there is very little he would change if he had to relive the last ten years of his life. There has been problems of course, like the kidnapping threats last year.
     - That was scary. The murder of John Lennon affected me strongly. I never met him but he was an inspiration to me and Benny. Björn still thinks it's fun to write songs and work with ABBA. But sometimes he thinks of what he would like to do with the rest of his life.

ABBA sang live on Swedish TV for the first time in 8 years

"It went pretty well..."

Stockholm. For the first time in eight years ABBA appeared live on Swedish Television. When the show was over around 11 last night they were all very pleased. That went excellent.
      No nerves were visibly just before the performance. I was on "Café 18" (A Swedish TV-show) and played the accordian a couple of days ago so I have been training, Benny Andersson said.
     - This is nothing remarkable, says Björn Ulvaeus, you can be yourself more. And we are always spiritual. They have just arrived home from TV-shows in the UK and Germany.
     - Those shows were also very relaxed, says Benny.
     The four members were very happy and upbeat.
     - "Nöjesmaskinen" is a nice program and it has a good feel to it, and it's nice to see someone else than Lennart Hyland, said Benny.
     There has been hundreds of TV-shows since their big break in 1974, but it was the first time they sang live since then. We did the same song, a few tones from "Thank You For The Music". And it worked out well here too.
     Everyone could tell that there was something special going on in this studio tonight, much more people and the hosts were extra nervous.
     - This was worst than the first show, Sven Melander one of the hosts said.
     ABBA's closest plans are that Agnetha will record a soloalbum this spring and Frida Lyngstad will record her next solo effort in August.
     - Björn and I are just debating on wheter we should make an other ABBA-album now or make our musical.

ABBA keep cool, but someimes they disagree

      - Sometimes it's undestand what is going on around us. Anni-Frid Lyngstad, once a former dance band singer from Eskilstuna, now known as "Frida" in the Swedish Music Industry ABBA, admits that sometimes the nerves gets the better of her. What I hate most i the long travelling. You have to look you best even though your body is aching from pain and jetlag.
     Even the boys in the band agree.
     - It's the worst for the girls, we don't hav to think about "fixing our face" care about what hair look like and being fashionmodels in private.
     On the "outside" ABBA's profile is the well brought up singing/songgroup that (almost) everyone can like. Två married couples (well Anni-Frid and Benny  are just living together and has done so for years.) Without any innerconflicts or controversys.

     But believe it or not - the ABBA people are just normal. With little aches and pains, bad moods, freqvent irritation at each other,all that stuff that makes it hard to smile pretty for the camera and looking cool.

     * Frida often comes three or four minutes late to an appoinment at the hotelllobby. Agnetha, who is *always* on time gets mad at Frida.

     * Agnetha must keepe a  tab on her bloodpresure  check she was expected her daughter Linda (born 23 February 1973) the doctors discovered that her bloodpressure is way too low.

     * Benny and Frida are night people, while Agnetha and Björn are early risers.

     * In the redordingstudio the tempers may fly amongst the walls, at least 3/4 of the group. Benny seem to be the one who clams everyone down.

     * To avoid our fans getting the wrong pictures of we always say no, and if we did let reporters and fans into the studio we we couldn'nt be honest in our musicmaking.

Agnetha releases new compilation album

According to Aftonbladet today Agnetha has chosen songs for a greatest hits albums of her Swedish recordings. The album will be called "My Very Best" and will be available in both Digipack and jewel case. Among the songs are the Swedish version of "S.O.S.", "När Du Tar Mej I Din Famn" and "Dröm Är Dröm och Saga Saga"Release date is October 8. From the online CD shops I have visited it looks like the CD will be a fullprice CD.

Some more pictures from the booklet of the CD:

Benny & Frida tells all about their divoce

BENNY: We are no angels.
Benny wa nervous, His hands were shaking. His hand never  stopped trembling and he was costantly fiddling with his cigaretes.
     He said:
     - I don't know how other peole deal with things like this. Frida and I are still friends and I'm still a member of ABBA. We are still good friends, but we are not married anymore.
     Benny divorce from  toAnni-Frid Lyngsa was something that happed dramatically quickly a lot of their friends have told us.
     - Benny jus cam home one day and said tha he had met someone else.
     Frida was devestated. For one spceial reason.
     The myserious new woman in Benny's life is Mona Nörklit, 37 year old TV-employee,

     Benny laugs:

     - Monia is my new woman, you can all her that.

     - Fida and I are still friends. She  respets me and what we can do muscially together.'

BENNY MOST AFFECTED

But it's not the comlete truth. There are no obious disagreements beween Frdída & Benny, There's is no laugher and joking around like it was back in the good old days.

     He is mostly the affeced peson in all this drama.

     - We discussed what was going to remain a the group in spite o all we hav been through. We decided to stay togeher for the sake of the music.

     - We are fond of what we are doing musically and we we will be able to cope with this as long as we all feel comfortable.

NORMAL PEOPLE

     - Sue, we know what we ae doing isn't art. I know we sell a h*ll of a lot of records and we are earning incredible sums of mney for doing that. But that doesn't mean that much, what we find pleasure and join in is writing and arranging  good songs.

    - I can't imagie myselm at example 45 years old dancing around the stag with a beerbelly, TheABBA-sound are  the girls. If you take then out of the eqaution then ABBA couldn't ecxist.

     - We are more or less homebodies and what keeps us grounded are the children. We are normal human beings. We have the same provlem a lot of other peole have,

********** *********

ANNI-FRID: - I'm in love with another guy

Frida has a new boyfriend. She reveals that "he is a rich Swedish businessman".

     -  I hav learnt from my mistakes, my new husband is not going to be forced into the media frenzy And that is why I can't  tell you who he is.  He is not part of the msic business, soemething I appreciate a whole lot.

     - He is part of my life now, but it's important to develop interets out of the music business.

    - Marriage is important to me, but love is more important. Marriage is no longer important to me, but love is. We will se what happens.

     - Any more children?

      - I'm not sure I want to start all over again.

About her divoce from Benny Andersson she says:

     - Now that Benny and I have broken up, we are able to work much better together.

     - Our relationsip is not as intsense as it was, but we are still in contact. We have chosen to be competely honest with each other. We have alawys been very honest about relationship and after long and hard talks we decided to to our separate ways.

WE HAD DIFFERENT INTEREST

     - We simply grew out of each other. It came down to our different goals in life.

     - We have always been honest and talked about everything. We talked and talked and finally we agreed that a divorce would be the best solution.

     - There was a lot of tears and a lot of discussions. But there was no way back. Breaking up became a necessity.

     - People look at us with a way that has to do with their own imagination. It has very little to do with what is really goingon between us.

ALL THREE GOOD FRIENDS

Frida tells us that she has introduced her new boyfriend to Benny and that all three of them are good friends now. Today Frida says that she is 'safe and secure'.

      - When I started (my career) I thought it would be nice if the audience knew me as an individual.

     - Their image of me was wrong. But that is somethings that doesn't bother me anymore. There is, however, something, how strange it might sound, worries Frida and that is money.

     - Once a month we have a boardmeeting discussing finances. We all have to agree on every decision, I'm worried that we won't make the right decisions.

ABBA quits (1983)

- Noone knows  if our paths will cross again, says Agnetha Fätskog about the supergrop ABBA. ABBA-Björn and Benny are collaboraing wtih Tim Rice for a new musical, Frid is moving to London and Agnetha herself is engaged to film the Swedish movie "Raskenstam" togeher with Gunnar Hellström, later this year or early next year. But she will also procue her own TV-special and Gunnar will also produce her first effort. Right now she is recording and producing her new album with Mike Chapman.  So in all fairness it sems like he ABBA-days are gone.
By Brita Åhrman

Agnetha and Björn's house on Lidingö

I found this picture in an old magazine from 1979 depicting Agnetha and Björn's new house on Lidingö. I love the Mickey Mouse figure on the front of the house. I guess it had to do with the fact the previous owner was Lasse Knutsson, the owner of the jeans company Gul & Blå and they had an exclusive deal with Disney for using their characters on their clothes.

More Björn and Benny...

Some readers of this blog complain that there aren't nearly as many pics of Björn and Benny. So to make some of you happy, I have decided to publish these outtakes from the "Lycka" session. Enjoy!

Björn & Benny Stockholmers of the month!

"We are talking  about making something big!"
Over 1.000.000 Swedes have seen their musical at the movies and they have beaten almost every record on the international top-ten-lists.
     So it didn't come as a surprise that Björn and Benny were voted Stockolmers of the month of August 2008.

Meryl Streep was there,. Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and Amanda Seyfrid too. But that wasn't the biggest thing that happened during the openingen of "Mamma Mia! - The Movie" at the Royal theatre. No, the big thing that made everyone take notice was that the "fourletter word" ABBA - Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Anni-Frid showed themselves in public together for the first time in 12 years.
     The popular group has sold most records in Swedish music history, were all there to celebrate the musical which title was the name of their hit songs: "Mamma Mia!" and it was written over 30 years ago.
     "Mamma Mia! - The Movie" has become a success like everything else the two golden boys have been involved in. If you look at only the ABBA-albums themselves they have sold 360 million copies worldwide. "Mamma Mia! - The Movie" has been played in over 170 cities world wide. But all this is not enough for Björn and Benny.
     - We are talking about making something really big, but it's a process that will take a very long time, Benny Andersson said to TT this summer.
     Last week it was time for another chart topper - "Mamma Mia" - The Soundtrack" entered at #1 on the American charts.
    - That definitely was the icing on the cake. Very nice, Benny Andersson says to Expressen.

Björn: »- Nelson Mandela is my hero«

Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet rewards people who have done something heroic, the contest is called »Swedish Heroes«. Björn is a member of the jury. Here he anwers six questions about heroic deeds.

1. How does it feel to be part of the »Swedish Heroes« jury?
     - I think it gives me some creditability just to be asked to participate. If you look at all the others, they are all people with very high integrity.

2. Can you describe an everyday-hero in three words?
     - Unselfish, courageous, compassionate.

3. Is it OK to break the law to help someone or prevent a crime? For example drive too fast, go through forbidden and closed areas, or even pull a gun?
     - Instinctively I would say yes. The principle for me is clear: you may break the law to save someone else. But naturally it depends on the circumstances, for example how much damage my action causes.

4. If I look the other way, don't dare to get involved - does that make me a bad person?
     - To just walk by - no, that's not good enough. There is always something you can do and you sometimes have to take a risk when it comes to saving life.

5. The Swedish Olympic wrestler Ara Abrahamian threw his bronze medal on the floor as a protest during the Olympic Games. Would you dare to defy the establishment for something you believe in?
     - If I felt that something was corrupt - then it's a heroic act to do what Ara did. In his situation it was the most effective thing.

6. Finally, who is your own personal heroic figure?
     - Nelson Mandela. When he was released from prison after all those years he wasn't bitter, instead he was constructive and looked to the future. That's a hero for me.