We’re in the car, heading southwest to Exminster and we’re listening to ‘ABBA Gold’. It’s Millie’s choice and I moan at first. But, soon enough, I find myself humming along. And, by the time we get to ‘Mamma Mia’, I’m singing too, joining in with the whole family – all four of us – with silly grins screeching out of tune:
‘Mamma Mia / Here I go again / Why, why, did I ever you let you go?’
Despite myself, I’m having FUN… I turn to my wife and say:
‘You know what, darling, they really did craft some perfect pop songs, didn’t they?’
At this point I check myself and think back to the 90’s when I berated my girl friends for putting on ‘Dancing Queen’ at parties not Nirvana. ‘SOS’ instead of ‘Song 2′. Then the 80’s when I would only listen to ROCK, never POP. It was the throw away pap you found on Top of the Pops. I preferred The Tube and The Old Grey Whistle Test. They were serious. Music was far too important to be crammed into three minutes, surely?
But, then I think even further back to the 70′s when I was a boy living in South West Herts…
… I went into Nick’s newsagents almost every day after school, rifling through the vinyl in the dark recesses of the shop. My brother Steve looked at comics and craned his neck trying to sneak a peek at the filthy mags on the top shelf: a tantalising glimpse of adulthood, just out of reach, beyond his grasp.
For a while I was attracted to a Vangelis album, but it was ABBA’s ‘Greatest Hits’ that really caught my eye. Of course I fancied the blonde one, but the other one was OK too, in a girl-next-door kind of way. I saved up and bought it on pre-recorded tape from WH Smith in Watford. It was great. I loved it and so did all my friends; girls and boys…
Even now, in my mid 40’s when I go to work and the train pulls in to Waterloo Station, I sing that chorus in my head:
‘Waterloo / I was defeated you won the war.’
It’s just so powerful, it’s completely embedded in my subconscious – right next to the Bra & Pants section in the Littlewoods’ Catalogue.
And so now I think: who cares who creates it? Johnny Cash, The Clash or The Carpenters. The fact is music can move you like no other. It can make you smile, cry or sway like a maniac; playing air guitar in your front room, singing way of tune, wearing nothing but a pair of stale old Y-Fronts… Mamma Mia!
