Thanks to ABBAMAILer Sara Russell for this review of the controversial UK TV special "ABBA - Behind The Blonde" shown this week.
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So there's me and my other half Paul settling under the covers having watched "ABBA - Behind The Blonde" last night and I find myself having this conversation:
Sara: I'd heard about the bucket of poo before but it never occured to me
that it might be Agnetha's!
Paul: Well they said on the programme that his hut didn't have running water
in the winter so it might have been
S: No Way! Are you telling me that having been used to the comfort she must live in that she could lower herself to perform in a bucket?!
P: Well, if she was at his place and nature called ...
S: Then she could leg the 800m back to her place for a dump! She's not doing to do it in a bucket!
P: I didn't sign up for this conversation when I heard "Fernando" as a 7 year old boy!
At that point we both realised at the same time what a ridiculous subject we were talking about!!
Well really, that's the tone that the program finished on following an interview with a Swedish police officer. "God, exclaimed Paul, "even the female police officers are gorgeous in Sweden!"
I couldn't believe what I was hearing from her, "We don't believe it was Ms Fältskog's poo." She actually said those words.
The program was actually a LOT better than I had expected. And I couldn't see that there was any contribution from Mr Tonnon and his team. Perhaps their contribution was to recommend contacts to be intereviewed, and there were plenty of them. Some of them surprising, some of them disappointing.
I was disapointed to see Claes af Geijerstam being interviewed at first. I felt sure that he would be the closet to "Team ABBA" and that did turn out to be the case. But what he had to say was interesting but gave nothing away really. He and Maritza Horn (backing vocalist from 1979?) both vividly remembered the details of the Boston flight which traumatized Agnetha so much. Everyone was pale when they got off he said, but it was far worse for Agnetha. The make-up lady Ingmarie also commented on the horrendous flight. It has clearly stuck in everyone's minds.
Other contributors:
Bruce Gaitch - I wish he'd go back into the hole he came from. We don't want to hear ex-boyfriends making comments about her fabulous arse, thank you. She's better off without a dickhead like that. His contribution to my ears was mainly to blow his own trumpet: "Look at me, I've had her!" He claimed he didn't want to be Mr Fältskog because that is what he would have been had they stayed together, the implication being that he had dumped her, not the other way around. He also said that he reckoned she still had "issues" with Björn although he gave no indication of what those issues may be.
Graham Tainton (choreographer responsible for the stupid "So Long" dance routine) - also seemed fixated with her back-side - oh please! If she was surrounded by people like this, no wonder she wanted out from it all.
Brita Ahman - not as fork-tongued as I had expected. Didn't realise she was so "squeaky". She spoke very high-pitched and so slowly that she needed a cattle prod to get the words out. She did not bitch about Agnetha other than to wonder what on earth she was doing by seeing Gert for two years.
But we've all wondered that and never more so than now. Honestly, you watch this programme and you have to say, "what on EARTH was she thinking?!" He clearly is no oil painting but doesn't appear to have any redeeming features that would otherwise make him appealing - no charisma, no real expressions, no apparent sense of humour, no prospects, no interesting life to speak of...
He spoke in Dutch throughout the program other than when he was singing "The Winner Takes It All" in his car at the end. It made me wonder how they must have communicated. Agnetha doesn't speak Dutch as far as I am aware. So perhaps he speaks Swedish as the letter he showed to the camera from Agnetha was in Swedish. And based on 30 years of fandom, it did look like her writing - signed Din Agnetha (Your Agnetha) at the end. Not her signature/autograph with the big circular 'A' but just written like the rest of the letter. He had a little pile of letters from her but briefly showed just one of them to the camera saying they were private. OK, so there's something good about him then.
He was clearly pleased with his "achievement" - he lost his virginity to Agnetha by the sounds of it. He sat there quite smugly as he recalled how they lay there 'afterwards'. Blerrrgh!
One thing I was pleased about was the recounting of Agnetha's ABBA story and the emphasis on the fact that she was a songwriter, and that her early solo stuff was mainly written by herself. I hope that informed the general public of something they didn't know already.
One commentator said that "The Winner Takes It All" was the most sadistic pop song ever.. referring to Björn making his ex-wife sing such personal lyrics. The same guy commented on the lyrics to "Knowing Me, Knowing You" and that Björn must have had a feeling that things were going wrong to have written such lyrics. (But didn't STIG write those lyrics? Remember him anyone?!?!! HELLO!???).
I was very surprised to see that so many ABBA clips, both moving and audio were used in the program. Whilst 'Frida's Nazi Secret' or whatever it was called was denied permission to use official clips and sounds, there were plenty in this program.
Based on just one viewing so far, the footage that stands out for me:
Sömmernojet - black and white footage of Agnetha's "Dom Har Glomt". This few seconds shows here being introduced, coming on stage and singing a little bit of the song previously only seen on the video "Essential Stockholm".
There was also some footage from a London visit I'd not seen before with a very small clip of an interview in the car from November 1976.
Also very small clip of Agnetha's facial expressions from footage of them in Netherlands I think.
And finally this during a piece describing the PROG movement in Sweden (which made all that stuff much clearer for me to understand):
The interview clips used from 2004 are from Nyhetsmorgon and the clips were used to good effect to show Agnetha not being the nutcase she's portrayed as by the Swedish press - and the clips were her saying as much/
The program was broadcast in wide screen.
They had the wrong pictures of Agnetha's husband No. 2 Tomas Sonnenfeld (the surgeon) by showing pictures of Torbjörn Brander (the bodyguard).
I was also surprised to see several familar ABBA fans and other faces (Jeffrey de Hart(American), Peter Palmqvist(Swedish), Anita Notenbloom (Dutch and runs the official ABBF Fan Club), Vaughan Davies (British), Ann Purann (German) - pretty much worldwide!) having a serious conversation. Basically Jeffrey said that most fans enjoyed the social aspect but some fans were lunatics ie. Gert. Not wrong there! Peter was shown commenting several times on ABBA and was labelled as an "ABBA Confidant".
Agnetha's neighbour creeped me out a bit actually - I think he seriously likes the attention and whilst I'm sure Agnetha is grateful to him for pinning gorgeous Gert down whilst waiting for the police, I'm sure she'd wish he'd let the whole thing go now.
All in all, not the pile of crap I was expecting although it did leave a bad taste in the mouth with the talk of the bucket of poo found in Gert's hut by the police. It was very humilating and degrading to listen to this tale being associated with our Agnetha.
So finally, what on earth DID she see in him? For what it's worth, I'm wondering if (speculation coming up .) she was so utterly depressed and heart-broken at the loss of both of her parents (regardless of how they may have died), that she was at her lowest point ever. Perhaps she lost all self-respect and was in a rut .. it's hard to get out of those you know.
What is never explained is:
a) WHY in the first place, but also
b) what happened to make it end - and for him to be deported?
She said in the Nyhetsmorgon interview that for safety reasons she did not want to talk about it. From comments made on the program, Gert is seemingly biding his time for the deportation orders to expire and he can return to Sweden, it made for uncomfortable and upsetting viewing.
