Towards the late eighties and the early nineties there was a trend of holding seventies discos where people would dress in 'hilarious' clothes from the times and 'pretend' to like songs from Grease, The Osmonds, and Abba. As Madness, The Jam, Dexy's Midnight Runners, The Smiths, New Order, The Fall, My Bloody Valentine, Public Enemy, The Jesus And Mary Chain, The Pixies, and The Stone Roses took turns demanding my attention Abba, and even Blondie, became yesterday's women (and men). I was on the side of Blondie (for obvious musical reasons as well, possibly, for hormonal ones that I was yet to fully understand) and my mum, representing the old brigade, the squares, stood firmly behind Abba. Blondie's cover of 'The Tide is High' had been knocked off the top spot and as Debbie Harry sang 'I'm gonna be your number one' my mum, a proud Abba fan (she'd taken me to the Cinema Royal in Tadley just three years earlier to see Lasse Hallstrom's Abba:The Movie), responded, with no little disdain, 'not any more'. One Sunday evening in November 1980 I was listening to the Top 40 on the radio with my mum (it was bath night, school the next day, but if I was 'good' I was allowed back downstairs to watch That's Life - what a treat). Not that I was always out as an Abba fan. Possibly even in my all time top thousand. But I stand by the assertion that Abba are certainly ONE of the best musical acts ever and Mamma Mia, along with SOS, The Day Before You Came, and Dancing Queen, is ONE of the best songs ever. I don't think I could narrow things down to one song or act. Of course, Mamma Mia isn't the best song ever written or recorded and Abba aren't the greatest, or even my favourite, musical act ever. More because it's really not big and clever to be that drunk.

It's not a story I enjoy hearing repeated (although now I've taken 'ownership' of it that may change) but not because of my grandiose claims of Abba's greatness. Between 'yes, I've been broken hearted' and 'blue since the day we parted' I'd break off to inform my mortified friends (who remarkably didn't disown me immediately) that Abba were the best band ever and Mamma Mia was the best song ever. Some years ago, in a somewhat refreshed state, I made an exhibition of myself in the Thames Tandoori near (appropriately enough) Waterloo station when I drunkenly decided to regale my unfortunate fellow diners with a far from note perfect rendition of Abba's pop-disco classic 'Mamma Mia'.

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