Voyage 2002

"This is nonsense, Agnetha. It's not what it seems!" July 2002 / Björn

Dordogne, Southern France

He grabbed his bottle of Orangina and slid down a little on the easy chair. "My God," he said aloud, taking a sip of lemonade. He crossed his legs. This was the first moment, this summer, that he sat quietly. He and Benny had worked until the very last minute to finish the mixes for Bumblebee and Ode To Freedom. Both were satisfied, but it had been a busy time. Even for him as a workaholic, as Lena always said.

Before the recording sessions in Benny's studio, they had ploughed through buckets of work in London. By the time they had gone through 'Waterloo' and the kids arrived, they were only about a quarter of the way through. And although 'ABBA' was okay in terms of the amount of video material, it was only with 'Arrival' that the party really started. Frida had come up with the idea of not doing everything together. If they divided up some things and would be interviewed separately, it would go faster. That turned out to be only partly true, because in the end, they wanted to know from each other what they had said and they had watched those videos together again. But anyway, it was all quite fun to do. Even the pain of 1978 and - later - of Frida and Benny's 1981, had been more manageable, because they had been able to stitch the wounds. Fredrik Skavlan didn't know about that, of course - because they would only open up about these backward scoops in the conversation about their new record - but they knew. And so talking about the misery was relatively easy.

The best memory he had was from the interview about 'Super Trouper'. Frida had arranged for Agnetha and him to be interviewed together about The Winner Takes It All. Agnetha had no idea, but Fredrik and he had discussed the question of questions together. After Agnetha had said that she thought it was the best thing she had ever done and that she was still proud of it, Fredrik had turned to him: "Björn, you have always said that the text is mainly fiction and that it was only inspired by Agnetha's divorce from you. Still, you want to say something about that today..." Agnetha's mouth fell open and he heard her brain crackle.

"Yes, perhaps I should correct something," he said, looking at her. "We're now some twenty-two years on, so maybe this is the time when I should admit that it was written from Agnetha's point of view."

Although she probably understood perfectly well what he meant, she still asked it.

"Some explanation, Björn?" Fredrik urged.

In the meantime he tried very hard not to take Agnetha's hand. After all, they weren't in a relationship, or were they... He cleared his throat and briefly talked about their separation. "Recently Agnetha told me that there was something going on with her at the time we broke up, but we didn't know it then. We were left in the dark and we couldn't find each other. Shortly after Agnetha moved out, I met my second wife."

She said nothing, but she swallowed and he had to restrain himself from pulling her into his arms.

"Why that happened the way it did is another story," he added, "but it was painful. Especially in the light of the things we know now."

He heard her exhale softly. When he looked at her, he saw tears in her eyes.

"Are we taking a break?" asked Fredrik, who - inwardly - was probably beaming with the beautiful shot that had just been thrown on him.

She shook her head. "No need to."

He put his hand on her shoulder. She took it briefly, patted it, and smiled faintly.

"A year later, when the sharpest pain was over, I wrote The Winner Takes It All," he said, turning to her. "I thought that's how you saw me then."

She took the tissues Fredrik handed her - also a pretty picture - and carefully dabbed her eyes. His hand slipped from her shoulder and he bent forward to pour her a glass of water. Inside of him, his feelings were flying in all directions. They were doing their very best to come out. Oh, Agge, I am so sorry! I loved you so much and the pain was so bad that I pushed you away and tried to replace you with someone else. How else was I supposed to survive?