Poking around on Google, it seems that Benny and Bjorn were both somewhat fluent in English even before the formation of ABBA. Bjorn had studied English in school and better English skills than Benny, so Bjorn wrote most of the English lyrics to their songs. Often their lyrics would be given to their manager who would make corrections and suggestions.
Agnetha and Anni-Frid did not speak English initially, and sung the English lyrics phonetically. They both learned to speak English reasonably well, though Agnetha is often cited as having the most difficulty with it. By the mid 1970s (maybe late 1970s for Agnetha) they all spoke English fairly well. If you listen to more recent interviews, they still speak English well, though you can easily tell that English is not their native tongue.
So, to say that the entire group spoke no English at all at first is clearly wrong. It was basically true for Agnetha and Anni-Frid, but not for Benny and Bjorn. I watched a 1975 Bandstand interview and Dick Clark only asked Agnetha one question, and she was clearly struggling a bit. The other three spoke English very well by then. I also watched a 1977 interview and Agnetha was much more comfortable and was speaking quite well.
Of course they spoke English back in the mid 70’s. Back when they went to primary school it was mandatory from 5th grade. When I started school 15 years later, it was mandatory from 3rd or 4th grade (transitional period, for those a few years younger it was from 3rd). Now it’s mandatory from 1st grade.
Another factor is that we never dubbed movies (except animated for kids) or TV here in Sweden. Only subtitles. So every kid heard English from a very young age.
Now this doesn’t mean they spoke English fluently, but Björm and Benny had people around them to help out. For them, as it is with many people writing lyrics, the percussive value/impact is the main thing. If it’s supposed to rhyme things might get a bit complicated (even for native English speakers), so we end up with things like:
The winner takes it all The loser’s standing small
Which are words. That rhyme. And the meaning is clear. But elegant it’s not.
I was in 5th grade when this came out and we called it “The Caveman Song.” I would have loved to have been there when the record producer said, “Guys, I’ve got an idea for how you should cover this BJ Thomas song.”
Yeah, most Swedes I run into are surprisingly fluent in English. Well, maybe not exactly surprising. Even the hockey players are quite good … I don’t think most American professional athletes are bilingual.
Never heard of either Ben Goldacre or Noosha Fox, but that was a fun little side trip.
I believe that’s what I just attempted to do. Went on YouTube, highlighted the URL, cut it, and pasted it here. Yet it only shows what appears to be a discourse link here. Go figure.
Modern browsers support something called “smart copy / pasting” where copying a url captures the page title as well as the url you highlighted. And when you paste that, your browser plus Discourse “helpfully” turns it into a clickable link showing the page title, not the content itself.
Try copying the url as you did but instead of Ctrl-V for paste, try Ctrl-Shift-V. That should give you just https://www.youtube.com/etcetcetc
rather than [Bob and the BogusTones play Misty - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/etcetcetc) which is what plain old Ctrl-V “helpfully” gives you.
Really lovely. The jungle noises are awesome. Where is this from? They don’t sound like native English speakers. Eastern Europe??? The rhythmic clapping seems a clue.
My apologies if you think that this is utterly irrelevant, but if you want to learn what a fascinating person Anna-Frid is, you should learn about the lebensborn:
Well, just to cleanse the palate (too much Nazis… and Abba), the boy choir reminded me of another Eastern European a capella choir. You’ve probably seen this (it’s a dozen years old now), but the sounds they can make at the beginning are still awesome.
While it as never a hit (or even on radio, actually) Jet Screamer singing Eep Opp Ork Ah-ah (on the Jetsons, A Date With Jet Screamer) is kinda catchy.
And all the good ones have been mentioned!
Shooby-do Ann Landers (well, that’s what I thought Karen was singing)
The winner takes it all
