Sunday 20 May 2012

1978: ABBA, to Paris because of love

An old gentleman with a beret is standing still and looking at the four young people who are getting together underneath the Eiffel Tower to pose for a souvenir photo. The dark-haired girl turns to her companion and kisses him on the cheek. The old man is hearing the girl say something in a foreign language and then she prances around the young man and kisses him on the lips.
"Oh, la, la, l'amour," the old gentleman whistles. The man isn't aware of the fact that he has just seen Sweden's most successful pop group under the Eiffel Tower in Paris. He just noticed the youthful happiness of the two couples.
"It's so wonderful to be married and to belong with the man that you love," Anni-Frid says a while after that in a typical French street cafe. "That was also the reason that we still decided to get married after seven years. After all, there isn't much time for romance in the music business. That's why the wedding took place in all secrecy and very quickly."
"But Anni-Frid and I have made one wish of ours come true," Benny interrupts his wife. "We granted ourselves some kind of honeymoon to the city of love, to Paris."
Still, this time the trip wasn't completely free of show business either. None of the four ABBA members can take the liberty of simply wasting too much time. That's why Anni-Frid and Benny mixed business with pleasure. They brought Björn and Agnetha along and turned the trip into a promotional campaign for their new single 'Summer Night City'. An interview at the broadcasting company, a performance in a TV show.
"We have planned everything in such a way that leaves us enough time to see Paris and pamper ourselves," Anni-Frid explains and smilingly she shows a gold necklace that Benny bought her two hours ago during a stroll through the city.
"For Björn and me it was a second honeymoon as well," Agnetha says. "Without the children and without too much fuss. It must be Paris." But there was still some fuss when the four of them showed up in a well-known nightclub in Paris the second evening. It's hard to overlook four ABBA members. And how will the group ABBA continue? "We are going back into the studio. After Christmas there will be a new ABBA album and in the beginning of January we will travel to New York to perform at the Unicef Gala together with the Bee Gees. But other than that we don't want to make too much plans," Benny explains. "In the future, our private life shouldn't take a backseat anymore like it has done up till now."

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