Abba's Björn Ulvaeus: "There's always that question ... Do I still deserve to be heard?"

• Abba returns with his neuros and his songs

A soprano voice imbued with a mezzo voice, a bit of drama and a bit of kitsch, razor-sharp melodies, lavish arrangements, romance and old-fashioned heartbreak ... that's what Abba, the most popular pop group of the 70s, was all about. 2021 has left the band's first songs in 40 years.

, the new album by Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad has coincided with the arrival of Ulvaeus in Madrid.

The Swedish composer has been named Honorary Member of the University Cloister of the Arts of the University of Alcalá de Henares along with Concha Velasco, Ramón Arcusa, Manuel de la Calva, Nacho Duato, Pepe Habichuela and Ginesa Ortega.

Björn Ulvaeus, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Agnetha Fältskog, and Benny Andersson.

Abba, in 2021.BAILLIE WALSH

He is in Spain to be honored by a university. Has the university been very far from your life? What I had planned was to go to university, dedicate myself to academic life, do some science or perhaps Civil Engineering ... But it turned out that I was in a group of rock in school and the group had a success in Sweden, I started touring and one thing led to another. For seven years I refused to think that I had a musical career, I thought that this was going to be an anecdote in my life. Then I gave up. I imagine there will be a few doctoral theses on Abba, some there are. They usually analyze our songs, look for a method in how we write music, find patterns. The truth is that Benny and I read them and it is difficult for us to recognize ourselves in them. Our experience is very different: I would tell you that it was all a matter of instinct,work and patience. Benny and I got together to play piano and guitar like that, as if to pass the time. We would play songs by other musicians, and then something would come out, a chord that was like a string to pull. "What you just did, is it new, isn't it? I haven't heard it in another song" ... And then we had something, we developed it, we wrote it. Then we would record it and play it in public. This is how songwriting work works. There is also no method to know if it is good or not. For us it is good at that time ... It is hard work, sometimes it takes days or weeks to find that thread. There is a very moving moment in one of his new songs,a chord that was like a string to pull. "What you just did, is it new, isn't it? I haven't heard it in another song" ... And then we had something, we developed it, we wrote it. Then we would record it and play it in public. This is how songwriting work works. There is also no method to know if it is good or not. For us it is good at that time ... It is hard work, sometimes it takes days or weeks to find that thread. There is a very moving moment in one of his new songs,a chord that was like a string to pull. "What you just did, is it new, isn't it? I haven't heard it in another song" ... And then we had something, we developed it, we wrote it. Then we would record it and play it in public. This is how songwriting work works. There is also no method to know if it is good or not. For us it is good at that time ... It is hard work, sometimes it takes days or weeks to find that thread. There is a very moving moment in one of his new songs,There is also no method to know if it is good or not. For us it is good at that time ... It is hard work, sometimes it takes days or weeks to find that thread. There is a very moving moment in one of his new songs,There is also no method to know if it is good or not. For us it is good at that time ... It is hard work, sometimes it takes days or weeks to find that thread. There is a very moving moment in one of his new songs,

. The music pauses and Anni Frid Lyngstad's voice says

, Do I carry it inside of me? I sense that it is a verse and an important question. There is always that question ... Do I have it, do I have enough, do I still have it? Can I keep doing it? Can I still write, find the notes, the words, go out to play them? Do I still deserve to be heard? It is the question that is at the beginning of all the projects that I have undertaken. Are you familiar with imposter syndrome? That's what we're all doing, of course. It happens to me too when I write. Sometimes it seems as if I see things different from how everyone sees them and that makes me insecure. Can I still excite someone? The song is called "I still have faith in you", but the important thing is not that but the question of the chorus. Imagine that I don't know anything about Abba, that one day they introduce us and that he has to explain to me what kind of group he is, in the most synthetic way possible.I would tell you, the first thing, that it is an organic band. It's the opposite of audition bands,

which are made with criteria such as: "we need a handsome one, another more innocent ...". Benny and I met by chance and became friends. Later, I also met Agnietha by chance and it turned out that she was a singer. And Benny met Anni Frid, again by chance. And even though we all made music, it didn't occur to us to make a group together until three or four years after we started being friends. And that has made us great, just as it made The Beatles great, without making comparisons. Without ever forcing it, without losing the naturalness, we empower each other in our talents. I will have read two thousand articles about how tyrannical the old music industry was in the 70s and 80s. Was Abba reasonably free? Was it as good a band as it could be or was there interference? We were very lucky. At first nobut when we won Eurovision, the

and they gave us independence. Benny and I could take months to write and no one was pressuring us. We got to the point of being co-owners of the company. Our working conditions were completely different from those of other artists. So we gave everything we had and were as good as we could be. What do you like about Abba's music: honesty and risk. If you listen to record by record you will see that there is no conformism, that we always wanted to go further. Separating was also a risk, just like doing musicals. The new album is and the London concert will be. We were never cowards, we always wanted to do our best. Taking risks also means making mistakes. Almost all the songs that I dislike about Abba are very early, from when we worked with a lot of pressure and a lot of rush.In many of those songs I find something worthwhile but it makes me angry because we lacked time to develop the idea. You had to get it out, you had to earn a living and pay the rent. After Eurovision that changed. But I won't tell you which songs from that second stage I don't like because the fans are disappointed with these things. I'm going to read you a few lines I found in a book by Elisabeth Vincentinelli: "Abba clearly states that it's okay to be a freak, a freak, a nerd, a queer ... You don't have to fit the classic definition of cocky to be happy". Put like that, Abba seems like a very contemporary and moral issue, too. I agree. Sweden has always been a very progressive country and we personally were too.By progressive I mean that we naturally saw different ways of life than ours. We had the Soviet Union close by, we got an idea of ​​what it was like to live in such a regime for anyone who went outside the norm. For a gay or a lesbian too. At the same time, we were traveling to the United States and we realized the inequality that existed. In Sweden we did not find these gaps between social classes and we were proud of it. We were never a band that talked about politics, but I suppose we transmitted that model of life. The fact that they were successful in a time of economic crisis and pessimism ... is it relevant? For us it was not. During the 1970s, we lived in a creative bubble that isolated us from everything else. We wrote music, we recorded music,we would go out to play and start the cycle all over again. Of course I read the news, I knew something about what was happening in the world, but I was not able to give it the importance it had. I was referring to the public. Why did Abba's music perform at a time of heartbreak? I have thought about it many times. I think that many of our lyrics speak of very sad things but that, somehow, the voices of the girls conveyed a feeling of joy. And that contradiction between joy and sadness gave us a very interesting nuance. That worked very well for northern countries. You must have read about Paul McCartney's memoir, about his theory that his love affair and rivalry with Lennon was the tension that made the Beatles so good. Do you and Benny recognize each other in that? A little yes, but only a little. At first,Benny and I wrote the music. He carried the weight of the composition but everything was in dialogue. Little by little, Benny concentrated on the music and I on the lyrics. What happens is that more than rivalry we tended to symbiosis. As composers we came from the same place and it was very easy to connect. Do you like the pop of 2021? The good yes. There are those who do very good pop today. Billie Eilish, Taylor Swift ... I think the genre is not in bad shape.I think the genre is not in bad shape.I think the genre is not in bad shape.

Abba, in the recording of 'Mirage'.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

• culture

• music

• Sweden

MusicPatria y Vida, the libertarian anthem of the Cuban rebels, Latin Grammy award for best song of the year

PhotographyMick Rock, legendary photographer of David Bowie, Lou Reed and other rock legends dies

MusicThe emotion of Antonio Orozco in the concert against cancer: "Nobody is prepared to face something like this"

See links of interest

• Last News

• Holidays 2021

• 2022 business calendar

• How to do

• Home THE WORLD TODAY

• Dynamo Kyiv - FC Bayern München

• Villarreal - Manchester United

• Barcelona - Benfica

• Chelsea - Juventus

• Lille - FC Red Bull Salzburg