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Post by Deleted on Jan 4, 2024 9:09:21 GMT
Routinely semi-rubbished even by a fair slab of ABBA fandom, and limping in at number 61 in the Fan Club's recent poll...well, I beg to differ! HoH makes my ABBA Top 10 (number 10, in fact) and, to my ears, it's a masterpiece of musical architecture. A bit like one of Wren's wonderful post-Great Fire of London churches, if not quite St Paul's Cathedral. The intro, in particular, absolutely floats my flotilla - bettered only by GGG and Eagle in the ABBA songbook, imo. But the whole piece is constructed from any number of sumptuous elements and completely nails that trademark happy-sad vibe (the band's fundamental calling card). I'll also just single out Agnetha's delightfully wry vocal and the sublime vibrato as she hoooooolds that looooooooooooooong final note. Far too good to be a Top 10 hit in the UK.
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Post by bjorenny on Jan 4, 2024 10:42:03 GMT
I totally agree. The 11 year old me loved this song as it was ABBA being ABBA, which then made the rest of The Visitors a bit of a surprise let-down, as that was ABBA NOT being ABBA. Of course, it didn't take me long to learn to love the rest of the album, but HOH is amazing and the closest to their previous output. A shame about the video..
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Post by iiwftn on Jan 4, 2024 17:01:24 GMT
I rank HOH as #23 on my all-time ABBA top 40 which is a fine position considering the competition.
Firstly, I think it’s a very underrated song considering that it holds the distinction of being chosen as a single. My guess is that the casual ‘Gold’/Mamma Mia Movie ABBA fan will probably not even know this one unless they bought (and still listen to) ‘More ABBA Gold’ (where even then it is far-removed from the opening tracks that were probably placed in such an order to sell the product better.
It’s a very 80s ‘European’-sounding track, not least with those heavy synths and jaunty rhythm track. It ambles along nicely and then we get the kitchen sink thrown at us with the chorus and the world is a better place for that. It’s a wonderful mix of keyboards and searing vocal harmonies.
And yet, like many of you, one can’t help but place the song in context to the bigger picture of what was happening to ABBA at the time. We may love the song, but we also know that the end was nigh, relationships were deteriorating, and chart positions were beginning to slip. Just months after their ninth UK number one, this song barely crept into the charts and left with a whimper.
The video is interesting in that again, it confirms to us where ABBA were by 1981. Frida is rocking her ‘screw you, Benny’ haircut. Benny barely looks interested as he contents himself with tinkering behind the piano. Mom-permed Agnetha has aged an entire decade in just three years since 1978 and newly bearded Bjorn is left to play the fall-guy as the sleepy, long-suffering, middle-aged other half of not Agnetha, but Frida. It’s the black-comedy, nightmare alternative world to Knowing Me, Knowing You. Live comes to them faster that Frida slipping on a Swedish slush puddle.
But yeah, it’s a damn good song.
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Post by Alan on Jan 4, 2024 17:18:34 GMT
I did love this song when the album came out. In fact, I remember thinking that this had to be the next single (which indeed it was, but I discovered later via letters in the ABBA Magazine that readers appeared to favour When All Is Said And Done).
Nowadays it’s probably my least favourite song on The Visitors, but that certainly doesn’t mean I dislike it. It’s trying to be light but is a bit cold-sounding. I don’t think the reason it wasn’t a big hit is because of the song though. ABBA-fatigue had set in and I think anything released at this time (including When All Is Said and Done) would have suffered the same fate.
Full marks to CBS-Epic for giving the UK a brighter sleeve design. The international one has them looking quite miserable and, as it was 1981, they look their worst. The second single in a row where the sleeve was changed, and both refuse to acknowledge Frida’s new hairstyle!
One thing - we tend to use that term “head over heels” to mean “head over heels in love”. Tears For Fears used that meaning in their (different) song with the same title. ABBA use another meaning - to go head first into something without thinking? I’m not sure if that was ever the phrase’s meaning or if Björn got it lost in translation. Language changes over time so if it ever was used for that, it isn’t now.
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Post by HOMETIME on Jan 4, 2024 19:42:22 GMT
I've never had any beef with this song and, in fact, it's grown on me more in recent years. I don't agree with the idea that it doesn't work as a song. It sounds like a solid single choice. It's catchy as crabs. Any "doubts" - if you could even call them that - were to do with its brightness on such a dark set. Same with TFTPOO (apart from it not sounding like a single to me).
I got a 5-CD compilation a couple of years ago, where Head Over Heels was included among an eclectic collection of electropop hits of the era. Classic after classic, it gathered all the cool and "approved" names from that time. And among all those arch and cool tracks, Head Over Heels jumped out like something the other tracks in the set wanted to be when they grew up.
The track has so much going for it: that iconic intro; Agnetha's light-as-air lead vocal; the quasi-operatic backing vocals that seem to strain towards the chorus like a roolercoaster car reaching the top of a curve; the magic of The Third Voice coming in full throttle. The video looks cheap and is lit like the interior of a fridge, but it's fun. The single sleeves are bonkers. The Polar sleeve spared every expense. Couldn't they at least have put the titles on a panel?
Anyhoo, I really like the track and I'm glad it was a single. (I still think there are three arguably more interesting singles on that album, but that's another discussion).
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Post by ianunderattack on Jan 6, 2024 17:39:33 GMT
Yep I love it too and always have done. It's #2 on my all time favourite list. The introduction/instrumental section is actually my favourite part of the whole song. It's so damn catchy! Anyone else agree that the descending synth motif that starts at the 16 second mark kind of crops up again in the instrumental bits of Don't Shut Me Down (but in a major rather than minor key)? Although I do wish the strings were real rather than synths.
I love Agnetha's lead vocal and I think it's another really interesting direction that they hadn't really explored before - a theatrical pop tango.
I think people are particularly down on it because it broke their run of hits and it kind of gets the blame. But I suspect that anything they'd released from The Visitors in Spring 1982 would have flopped. Would a personal appearance on Top of the Pops have made a difference? Probably not! I do wish there was a studio performance of the song. To be honest, I'd rather have seen that than the video we got - as much fun as it is to see Frida whizzing around a department store and modelling a range of hideous 80s outfits...
I can see why it was chosen as a single. The lead track off the new ABBA album had yet again been an Agnetha-led divorce song, so they presumably were looking for an ostensibly more upbeat track like Super Trouper for the follow-up. Problem is the only tracks on The Visitors which aren't pretty bleak are this and Two For The Price Of One! And actually Head Over Heels never strays far enough from its C# minor key signature to feel truly joyful like the old ABBA who gave us Take A Chance On Me and Mamma Mia.
It's interesting to me that the Thompson Twins had a Top Ten hit only a year later with We Are Detective, which is very much in the same vein - another minor key pop tango, with some similarities to Head Over Heels' bassline. So I don't think the single-buying public were averse to buying this kind of song - they just didn't want it from ABBA.
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Post by clumsylikeaclown on Jan 6, 2024 19:01:07 GMT
Head Over Heels is one I'm of two minds about.
I like its bizarre 'ice cold' feel and the tongue in cheek lyrics, but it does feel a bit like they were trying to make an upbeat track and only got halfway. It also pales in comparison to nearly every Visitors track except Two For The Price Of One.
But I'll happily listen to it when I'm in the mood for something different.
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Post by Alan on Jan 6, 2024 22:42:18 GMT
ianunderattack, you don’t think Two For The Price Of One is bleak? I’d say that, other than the title track, it’s the darkest song on there! The character is painted as having a dull job and a dull life. The way that the punchline is delivered suggests he wasn’t keen on taking up the offer and walked away. There’s a demo version of the track where the word “knife” is used instead of “wife”, suggesting he comes close to wanting to end his life. Björn presumably decided that, even for The Visitors, that was going a bit too far and changed it. I would have suggested that I Let The Music Speak isn’t particularly dark but having reminded myself by reading the lyrics, it’s clear that it too is rather bleak. No, Head Over Heels stands alone on the album as having a lighter subject matter.
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Post by ianunderattack on Jan 7, 2024 0:55:31 GMT
Yes, it would have been bleaker if they'd stuck with the hint of suicide, but I think the fact the song is structured like a joke, (leading up to the 'meet my mother' punchline, followed by the oompah-pah outro) means I've never considered it to be a particularly dark song. Also the decision to change it from a first person narrative in the demo to third person in the final version has a distancing effect: therefore I don't think you empathise with the plight of the protagonist in the same way. Like I say, it's like somebody telling a funny anecdote: "I had this mate who nearly ended up in a threesome with a girl and her mother..."
So yes although the subject matter of Head Over Heels is comparatively light, the minor key means it does have a darkness to it, which for me, Two For The Price Of One - bouncing along quite happily in a major key - lacks.
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