In 1971, Sweden became the second country in the world to decriminalise pornography after Denmark. That year Agnetha Fältskog married Björn Ulvaeus. They were in a cabaret act with another romantically involved duo, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. It was called Festfolket. The name was a pun on the Swedish words for “party people” and “engaged couples”.
The following year the foursome became Abba. Trading on their status as couples, their image was as clean as their dazzling smiles. Nonetheless they were not untouched by Sweden’s reputation for sexual permissiveness. It mostly affected the blonde Fältskog, an unwilling sex symbol. Her response to a 1977 concert review in an Australian newspaper lauding “Agnetha’s bottom” as “a Swedish national treasure” was to groan: “Oh my god. Don’t they have bottoms in Australia?”
But Abba were not above feeding those fantasies too. The theme of sexual liberation runs through their music, from the 17-year-old “teaser” in “Dancing Queen”to the absurd schoolroom seduction played out in “When I Kissed the Teacher”. A journalist visiting Andersson’s office in 1976 noted a life-size painting of a scantily dressed young woman, “the only sign of decadence in the whole Abba operation”.
“Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)”is the most liberated of their songs, a masterpiece of Scandinavian frankness. It was recorded in August 1979 for a North American tour. Sung by Fältskog, it is about a depressed woman alone in a flat watching late-night television as an autumn wind howls outside. “Gimme, gimme, gimme a man after midnight,” she cries. “Won’t somebody help me chase the shadows away?”
Her gothic tale of alienation and sexual frustration unfolds to the pulse of a libidinous disco beat: the disco craze was at its peak in 1979. The song’s video, made by Swedish film director Lasse Hallström, shows it being recorded in Polar Studios in Stockholm, a state of the art establishment that Abba had built for themselves. The headphones that Fältskog is filmed wearing are among the exhibits at the Abba-themed Super Troupers exhibition currently showing at London’s Southbank Centre.
The video opens with a close-up shot of a pair of hands pushing sliders on a mixing-desk, a sign of the group’s adaptation to new pop technologies. Hallström had used a similar opening shot several years earlier in his video for Abba’s 1973 single “Ring Ring”, although back then the hands were playing a jaunty tune on an old-fashioned piano.
The quartet had come a long way as musicians. They had also come a long way as individuals. At the start of 1979 Fältskog and Ulvaeus filed for divorce; Lyngstad and Andersson separated the following year. In “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)”, Fältskog found herself in the awkward position of singing verses about a woman’s desperate urge for sex that had been written by her lyricist ex-husband, who by that point had rebounded into the arms of a new girlfriend. The dazzling smile must have ached.
Yet the song has a feminist aspect too. Sung with disco-diva power by Fältskog, supported by Lyngstad on backing vocals, it gives unambiguous voice to female desire. Perhaps fearing the approach might prove too bracing for less sexually egalitarian cultures, “man” was swapped for the generic term “love” when they recorded a Spanish version, “Dame! Dame! Dame! (Amor Esta Noche)”.
After Abba ended in 1982 their music became a byword for cheesy pop. But “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)” lived on as a gay anthem. In 1986 the synth-pop duo Erasurepaid tribute to it with a hi-nrg cover version, the B-side to their single “Oh L’Amour”. “You didn’t admit to liking [Abba] at school unless you were a bit femme, so me and my friends did,” their singer Andy Bell said.
The song featured on the 1992 compilation Gold: Greatest Hits, which posthumously restored the band’s commercial fortunes with 30m sales. It was also reactivated by pop’s queen of sexual liberation, Madonna. Her 2005 hit single “Hung Up”was based on a sample of the irresistible synthesiser riff that runs through “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)”.
It was only the second time that Abba had licensed their music as a sample (The Fugees used “The Name of the Game” in their 1996 song “Rumble in the Jungle”). Madonna said she wrote to them “begging” to be allowed to use it. Andersson, who composed Abba’s music, framed the letter. Perhaps it hangs in place of the louche painting of the young woman.
‘Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)’: do you like it or loathe it? Let us know in the comments below.
‘The Life of a Song: The fascinating stories behind 50 of the world’s best-loved songs’, edited by David Cheal and Jan Dalley, is published by Brewer’s.
Music credits: UMC (Universal Music Catalogue), Epic, Mute, a BMG Company, Warner Bros.
Picture credit: Camera Press/Heilemann