abba, dancing queen, and what it means to be 17
because i must talk about ABBA at least once
Alright, okay, let me start off with a hyperfixation of mine – let me talk about music. But not just any music, because god forbid I be able to make one of those coherent, aesthetic playlists for every occasion of my life. No, I come bearing my very long list of ‘liked’ songs all cocooned in a singular playlist.
But no worries, today I want to talk about what was most likely the first ‘band’ I listened to – ABBA. Now look, I know there’s a vehement trend of reels going around with soundtracks like ‘Angeleyes’ and ‘Voulez Vous’... but my love for ABBA goes far deeper than that. Let me tell you a story.
I don’t particularly remember when it was, but it was fairly early in my childhood, maybe I was seven or eight – we had this Bose music player with an FM. Laptops were still bulky with a variety of plugin points and most importantly, a CD drive. The only other way I listened to music was by downloading them off a site called ‘youtubetomp3’. Life was good, life was simple. I would download live concert songs with the audience cheering and clapping along and listen to it on my laptop.
We had the ABBA album (still do), a navy blue album cover, embossed with the gold initials of the band. On my birthdays, we would play a game of musical chairs to the beats of Dancing Queen. None of my friends knew the song, but we still chased each other in glee, racing to get to the nearest chair.
I listened to the beats of Mamma Mia, learned only the lyrics to that song and then I forgot, like most people at my age did, chasing around the need to be updated to the trendiest songs back then.
Surprisingly, I never could stick to catching up with trends; One Direction wasn’t particularly enticing to me. Selena Gomez and the Hannah Montana soundtracks could only last me so long.
Then came the time when I first watched Mamma Mia, the movie. My god, Meryl Streep was a delight! I did not know who she was, I didn’t care about the actor’s names – I knew them as Donna, Sophie, Tanya and Rosie. And these women had me in a chokehold of musical extravaganza. I was frantically looking for the ABBA album at home, sliding it into our Bose player and it was on again. I was truly a fan now.
In 2013, I was lucky enough to be casted in the choir for our own version of an ABBA musical at school. To say that I had all the lyrics already learnt by heart is not even an understatement – I was over the moon perhaps; in my mind, it was one of those moments where something I had genuine interest in was being placed on a pedestal (albeit, not personally mine to behold).
Time passed, I went on to listen to a variety of music – all genres, types and languages – but every once in a while, I would put on some ABBA and simply let myself drown in it. Safe to say, when the second instalment of the Mamma Mia franchise came out in 2018, I found myself victim to yet another euphoria induced addiction.
I turned 17 in 2019, and there was a surge of wishes along the lines of ‘17, dancing queen’. It was most likely a couple of factors that made my seventeenth a good one, but I never really knew the deal was with being a dancing queen. Seventeen was just seventeen; a number which I will leave behind next year, so what was the big deal? That might have been the first time that I could not bring myself to listen to that song, not without feeling like I had lost something important at that age. Seventeen felt like youth slipping away, I could never sing this song with excitement again because I was already seventeen! I would never be a dancing queen again…
Today, every time that I watch Meryl Streep dance across my scene, jumping on her bed and twirling her way through the island, I sing along with a wide grin and overly excited heart. At seventeen, I felt like I had lost a part of me that I had never even come to terms with; at twenty two, I am realising that seventeen is still just a number but as long as the song remains in my heart, it will always be an occasion to be a dancing queen.
I will use this as a leeway to the lyrics of Our Last Summer; for context, I’m talking particularly about this first verse:
I can still recall
Our last summer
I still see it all
Walks along the Seine
Laughing in the rain
Our last summer
Memories that remain
Coming back to the very core of the theme of this blog, I don’t think I will be able to put into words better than these verses the exact way I have been feeling lately. Getting over my seventeenth may have seemed like a herculean task back then, but it passed by in the blink of an eye and I never really noticed. My twenties though, feel like clearly pronounced days of all that could have been and all that can be without a real motive or path to follow.
While I’m trying so desperately to grasp onto these pockets of life so that I may label them as memories down the road, I have so many regrets of not having been able to do things in the past that so many around me have had a taste of. I have wondered what it would have been like to be able to experience those things. The fear of growing old without having lived my youth settles deep into the crevices of my bones even now and I appreciate the summer of my teens when none of this mattered. Our old Bose system is now packed and stored away, no longer manufactured and no longer repairable – a token of gratitude to it for all the music it played me, you shall be loved and remembered fondly and I can only hope that the time I spend doing whatever, turns out to be fond memories too. I hope that in the future, I can look back and laugh at the way I overthink and mourn something I do not know of.
There is still just pure joy as I listen to the entire ABBA tracklist; it’s music that brings genuine happiness and if you’ve watched the movies – it leaves you pining for your slice of life, romantic moment in Greece. These are my words, but what girl doesn’t want to be running through Greek islands, her hair askew and chiffon skirts twirling around her ankles to the soundtrack of real summer happiness?
ABBA's music is more than just songs to me; it's a reminder of the joy, nostalgia, and timelessness of youth. It reminds me that, no matter how many years pass, the essence of being a "Dancing Queen" can remain in our hearts. As I navigate through my twenties, ABBA's melodies are a comforting companion, bringing me back to simpler times and while it remains difficult sometimes to embrace this life in its entirety, you would be surprised how much bearable it gets with a good soundtrack to play in the background..
So, here's an ode to the music that has kept me alive so far because ABBA rightly said…
Thank you for the music,
The songs I’m singing
Thanks for all the joy they’re bringing
Who can live without it
I ask in all honesty
What would life be
Without a song or a dance
What are we?
So I say thank you for the music
For giving it to me.