TOP 40 DEBUT: December 8, 1979
PEAK POSITION: #29 (January 12, 1980)
America never got ABBA. Yes, I’m aware that “Dancing Queen” hit #1 in the U.S. for one week in 1977, months after topping the charts in over a dozen countries. But “Dancing Queen” is one of the greatest songs of the twentieth century. Its greatness is unimpeachable. Its greatness flattens all objections. Its greatness is so great, even America itself had to sit up and, briefly, take notice. (“Dancing Queen” is a hard 10. You probably figured that out already.)
But outside of that one single, ABBA consistently underachieved in the States. Over the entirety of the Seventies, the Swedish quartet only reached the Top 10 twice more, with “Waterloo” (a 10) hitting #6 in ‘74 and “Take A Chance On Me” (another 10) climbing to #3 in ’78. By comparison, both songs hit #1 across Europe, along with “SOS,” “Mamma Mia,” “The Name Of The Game,” and countless other classics that stalled out in the middle of Billboard’s Top 40 chart. For much of the decade, ABBA were a chart force in England, Australia, Germany, Norway, Canada… basically, everywhere but here.
I was blissfully unaware of America’s shameful history with ABBA until years later. In my house, ABBA ruled. My parents didn’t listen to the radio in the 1970s, meaning my siblings and I didn’t listen to the radio in the 1970s. Instead, we absorbed whatever our parents decided to play for us, which was mostly Sixties folk music and Sesame Street records. But sometime around “Dancing Queen,” my dad fell hard for ABBA. So he bought the albums and played them in the house. He made tape copies and played them in the car. And pretty soon, the whole family fell for ABBA, too. My parents basically tuned out 98% of the pop music being produced in one of the best decades ever for pop music, but ABBA? They got ABBA.
“Chiquitita” reached #1 in eleven different countries, went Top 20 in eleven more, and barely missed the top spot in the United Kingdom and the group’s native Sweden. (In those territories, the song was thwarted by Blondie’s brilliant “Heart Of Glass.” That’s respectable.) A Spanish language version expanded ABBA’s reach to places like Mexico, Chile, and Argentina, where the single sold half a million copies. But here in the States? “Chiquitita” barely cracked the Top 30, yet another victim of America’s ABBA apathy.
ABBA formed in 1972 in Stockholm, combining the talents of four musicians (two male songwriters, two female vocalists) who'd all found some measure of previous, individual success in Sweden. Björn Ulvaeus fronted the popular folk-skiffle group the Hootenanny Singers, Benny Andersson wrote #1 songs for his band the Hep Stars, and Agnetha Fältskog hit #1 herself with a self-penned song in 1968. Anni-Frid “Frida” Lyngstad would need three more years to reach #1 with her own solo effort; by that point, she was in a relationship with Andersson, while Ulvaeus and Fältskog were married. Andersson and Ulvaeus had already begun to write and produce as a team, and the couples were now vacationing together and participating on each other’s recording sessions. Lyngstad’s solo single, “Min Egen Stad” (translated to “My Own Town”), would be the first native #1 to include all four members of the biggest group Sweden ever produced. It wouldn’t be the last.
The first true ABBA single, “People Need Love,” was officially credited to “Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid,” and somehow managed to chart in America (#114 on the Cashbox Pop Singles) despite possessing a band name no English-speaking deejay could pronounce. By 1973, cooler heads prevailed—specifically the head of Polar Music, the quartet’s record company in Sweden. Stig Anderson, now the group’s manager as well as their label boss, encouraged his clients to adopt a less unwieldy moniker. He then suggested using an acronym of their first names. By the spring of 1974, when “Waterloo” hit #1 across Europe (and #6 in the States), Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Anni-Frid had become ABBA.
“Waterloo” kicked off one of the greatest streaks in pop music history; over the next five years, ABBA would have five more #1 singles in the U.K., along with ten additional Top 10’s in at least one European country. “Chiquitita” landed in January 1979, less than five years after “Waterloo,” and wound up being one of the biggest hits of the year in multiple territories. Its success inspired Andersson and Ulvaeus to finish work on the troubled Voulez-Vous album, which itself became a huge seller across Europe upon its arrival in April. America, as always, was the odd country out. “Chiquitita” didn’t even get a Stateside release until the end of the year, a curious afterthought strategy that resulted in a final chart placement lower than almost anywhere else in the world.
ABBA recorded “Chiquitita” for the Music for UNICEF concert, a massive charity event held on January 9, 1979, and featuring some of the biggest acts in music at the time, from Donna Summer to Olivia Newton-John. Ostensibly, the benefit was intended to mark the beginning of the “International Year of the Child.” But since Music for UNICEF initially sprang from the mind of Bee Gees manager Robert Stigwood, it also served as an incredibly effective promotional tool. Four days before the concert aired in prime time on NBC, the Bee Gees hit #1 with “Too Much Heaven,” the track they lip-synced during the broadcast. A month later, another song performed at the benefit—Rod Stewart’s “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?”—hit #1 as well. (And you know who really knocked it out of the park for this show? Earth, Wind & Fire. Their contribution, “September,” topped the R&B chart three days later. “September” is a 10 and would’ve reached the summit anyway, but the UNICEF boost didn’t hurt.)
Lyrically, none of these songs had even a remote connection to the “Year of the Child.” “Chiquitita,” written from the standpoint of a mother singing to her young daughter, absolutely did. Releasing the single in the immediate afterglow of a worldwide-broadcasted benefit concert, with half the proceeds going directly to UNICEF, undoubtedly contributed to “Chiquitita”’s rapid success in multiple countries.
So the decision by Atlantic Records, ABBA’s label in the States, to delay the single until October 1979 isn’t just baffling; it’s counter-intuitive. There was no other competing ABBA single in the pipeline. “Summer Night City,” the group’s stand-alone September release, wasn’t issued in America. “Does Your Mother Know,” the worldwide second single for Voulez-Vous, didn’t appear until May. Atlantic could’ve printed money along with the rest of the world—or, at the very least, had a decent shot at getting the Swedish quartet back to the Top Ten. Instead, they dropped the ball.
Before the eleventh hour completion of “Chiquitita,” “If It Wasn’t For The Nights” had been slated as ABBA’s UNICEF contribution. The former makes sense from a “charity single” aspect; honestly, I prefer the latter. “Nights” is an insanely catchy mid-tempo banger that leans all the way into disco, without sacrificing any of the trademark ABBA idiosyncrasies. (A nightclub number where the protagonist succumbs to crippling depression once the sun goes down? Classic Benny and Björn.) It’s fascinating to imagine this particular song being pushed to radio right as the glitter-ball era was absolutely peaking commercially. Would it have blown up in the States? We’ll never know. “If It Wasn’t For The Nights” got relegated to an album track, a deep cut on ABBA’s most Americanized album.
ABBA were never afraid to mix genres with abandon: always on the same record, sometimes within the same song. That said, Voulez-Vous is the closest the group ever came to fully embracing disco. At least half of its ten cuts nod to the dance floor, with the title track notable for being partially assembled in Criteria Studios, ground zero for the Bee Gees’ entire run of late-Seventies chart toppers. For the first (and only) time in their existence, ABBA left Sweden to record, attempting to appeal to America on her home turf. America, of course, responded in the most passive-aggressive way possible. “Voulez-Vous” flopped at #80 and was gone from the Hot 100 in three weeks.
“Chiquitita” bears almost no stylistic connection to “Voulez-Vous” (the song), or Voulez-Vous (the album), or really anything going on culturally in early 1979. Its nearest ascendants might well be the incredibly unhip German subgenres of schlager and Volkstümliche: basically, sentimental balladry with an “oompah” emphasis. Andersson and Ulvaeus had never been afraid to work some good ol’ fashioned European folk tradition into their tunes before. (Check out ABBA’s debut Ring Ring for proof.) The trick to “Chiquitita” is how skillfully they managed to hide those beer-hall origins inside a different continent’s folk heritage.
Originally, “Chiquitita” started life as “Kålsupare” (translated to “Birds Of A Feather”). Once lyrics were added, it became “In The Arms Of Rosalita,” with Agnetha and Frida alternating verses to each play the part of a scorned woman. But no one in the quartet was especially happy with this version. A week later, Benny and Björn re-recorded the track, lightening the feel and emphasizing the Latin American elements. Inspired by the new arrangement, Ulvaeus wrote revised lyrics that better fit the mood. “Rosalita” became “Chiquitita Angelina,” and finally just “Chiquitita.”
Years after the fact, in-studio audio surfaced of Andersson and Ulvaeus referencing “El Condor Pasa (If I Could)” as a specific point of reference for their session musicians. But there’s a crucial difference between Simon & Garfunkel’s classic and ABBA’s song. Paul Simon didn’t just absorb Peruvian folk music; he used the full original track by Los Incas, a bonafide Andean group, and simply added embellishments on top. With “Chiquitita,” Benny and Björn did the reverse. Everyone remembers the song’s opening, a gorgeous piece of Spanish classical guitar played by long-time ABBA sideman Lasse Wellander; less remembered is how quickly it gives way to the music-box flourishes of Andersson’s piano, more Liberace than Latin America. The most Spanish thing about “Chiquitita” is its title. Everything else is just window dressing. By the time the chorus hits, “Chiquitita” might as well be straight-up German beer drinking two-step.
Speaking of the title: Are we sure this song is about a mother consoling her prepubescent daughter? Because that now-commonly accepted interpretation seems to hinge solely on the literal Spanish translation of “chiquitita” as “very young girl.” And just a quick scan of the lyrics reveals that this kid would have to be the most angst-ridden child in human history: “Chiquitita, tell me what's wrong/ You're enchained by your own sorrow/ In your eyes there is no hope for tomorrow.” What five-year-old feels like this? Or, more precisely, what five-year-old has experienced enough (or any) romantic trauma to empathize with this particular chorus? “Chiquitita, you and I know/ How the heartaches come and they go and the scars they're leaving.” I had a few crushes in my elementary school days. None of them ended like that.
And yes, let me offer the standard caveat: No one listens to ABBA for the lyrics. Even the quartet’s best songs are chock full of moments of glorious gibberish. And one of Agnetha’s and Frida’s most amazing—and overlooked—talents entailed making that gibberish sound absolutely momentous. So there’s no need to analyze the vague, non-specific uplift of “Chiquitita”’s lyrics for any actual meaning. Once both women blend voices and stop time (“Try once more like you did before/ Sing a new song, Chiquitita”), meaning ceases to matter.
So how did four Swedes conquer Latin America with a song that, even viewed through the nicest possible lens, has only a superficial connection to Latinas? Marketing. ABBA knew a Spanish-language single could only boost their traction in Central and South American countries, and the group had never been shy about recording vocals in multiple languages to expand their audience. (The Swedish-only “Waterloo” was later sung in English, German, and French.) Buddy McCluskey, an employee at RCA Records in Argentina who originally proposed the idea, translated the lyrics into Spanish with the assistance of his wife, Mary. Agnetha and Frida didn’t speak the language, so they learned their lines phonetically. “Chiquitita” went on to be the biggest South American single in twenty-five years. Imagine an entire continent of Latinas embracing a Eurocentric pop polka written and performed by the whitest people on Earth. That’s the international power of ABBA in miniature.
I love nearly everything in ABBA’s catalog, save their pseudo-folk songs and their ballads. So I’m probably not the best audience for “Chiquitita.” For my money, the quartet already covered this ground with the superior “Fernando” (peaked at #13 in November 1976, a 9). But I’ll concede that Andersson and Ulvaeus elevate what could’ve been a sentimental slog into something approaching pure pop art. The half-buried counterpoint vocals running underneath the verses (and, eventually, throughout the chorus itself) add layers of mystery, especially when you can’t quite pick out what those vocals are saying. Agnetha, as always, delivers a pitch-perfect performance; Frida, as always, provides pitch-perfect compliment. And dropping a 5/4 bar into the chorus? Genius-level move. (I love that the top two positions on the February 1979 U.K. charts were held by songs with odd time signatures.)
Finally, kudos to whatever session player handled those expertly placed timpani rolls, particularly the one punctuating the track’s rousing outro. Supposedly, that section only happened after Benny moved the bridge of “In The Arms Of Rosalita” to the end of “Chiquitita,” junked the original vocal, and crafted a new piano melody in its place. The resulting instrumental coda winds up being the highlight of the entire song. (Until a recent re-listen confirmed otherwise, I always remembered that section with castanets. Honestly, it would’ve been even better with castanets.)
The overwhelming success of “Chiquitita” marked the beginning of a long love affair between ABBA and Latin America. The quartet’s next single, “I Have A Dream,” also got a Spanish language version (“Estoy Soñando”) and became another South American hit. Encouraged by the response, ABBA took the unusual step of releasing an entire Spanish language album in 1980, featuring new translations of eight of their previous hits alongside “Estoy Soñando”—and “Chiquitita,” obviously. Gracias Por La Música (translated to Thank You For The Music) peaked at #2 in Spain and was later certified platinum. As for us English-speaking Americans? We would need another entire year, and one of the greatest songs ABBA ever made, to start paying attention again.
GRADE: 7/10
BONUS BITS: Sinéad O’Connor’s version of “Chiquitita” was recorded in 1999 for Across The Bridge Of Hope, a charity album to support the families of bombing victims. This isn’t peak-period Sinéad, but it’s still pretty darn good.
I WANT MY MTV: ABBA’s campy reputation, which persists to the present day, stems almost entirely from a series of early, low-budget, absolutely ludicrous promo videos. By those (admittedly low) standards, “Chiquitita” is fairly harmless. Having no time to do a “proper” clip, the band simply shot a quickie performance outdoors for the BBC instead. In February. In Switzerland. In front of a ten-foot snowman. For the song that turned out to be their Latin American breakthrough. (Okay, now that I say these things out loud, this one might be pretty ludicrous, too.)