ABBA is a particular guilty pleasure of mine and today’s classic song of the day is their single “Honey, Honey.” This was the second single release from their second album, Waterloo.
ABBA released “Honey, Honey” as a single in April of 1974. It was a top twenty hit in Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, and West Germany. It was not released as a single in the UK, however; a cover of the song by a group called Sweet Dreams was a top ten hit instead. In the U.S., unfortunately, “Honey, Honey” peaked at #27 on the Billboard Hot 100 and just #37 on the Cash Box Top 100. (For whatever reason, ABBA was much bigger everywhere else in the world than in the U.S.)
“Honey, Honey” was written by the usual team of Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Stig Anderson. Anni-Frid (Frida) and Agnetha shared the lead vocal duties on this one, with Björn taking over on the bridge.
I was recently listening to a rebroadcast of Casey Kasem’s American Top 40 from October 26, 1974. Remember, ABBA was a relatively new thing at the time, with only one previous hit, the aforementioned “Waterloo.” Here’s how Casey rather nonchalantly introduced the track, which was #27 on that week’s chart:
“Here’s another group from Sweden. They call themselves ABBA.”
Yes. Another group from Sweden. That’s how important they were to Mr. Kasem and his listeners at the time.
(That other group from Sweden? Blue Swede, with a cover of “Never My Love” at #33.)
Obviously, ABBA got bigger. For today’s daily bonus video of the day, we have ABBA lip synching “Honey, Honey” on the West German Musikladen television program in 1976. Sexy.
