THE ABBA UNCOVERED EXPERIENCE
Welcome to the second day!
Dancing Queen
This is a big day cause we have both a single and a video for this one! Dancing Queen is the song I've been singing the most times during my lifetime! Probably more times than ABBA themselves 😅 It's everyone's favorite! This is an important song for me. You can read a little bit about the process below!
How Dancing Queen came to life.
Dancing Queen was the second single released from the EP. After singing this song over and over I heard how the happy and light lyrics could get a different meaning if I wrapped it in a new, personal and fragile arrangement. The melody has a direction and tension that can carry over a stripped down version so I wanted to try that. My intention was to turn this disco tune about a fun night out for a young girl, into a celebration to women, bring encouragement and hope! I wanted to show a vulnerable and honest view into women’s lives. We need to believe in ourselves and support each other and my message in my rendition is to promote female empowerment! I tried to lift this even more in the video where I included women of all generations, dancing in their own unique way, happy and free, intertwined with the dramatic parts in the music to reflect the hardships. The phrase "You come to look for a king" has always stood out to me. Anyone or anything can be that “king” (or queen!) - it exists within each of us!
The piano
I wanted to change part of the chords to really create a new emotional experience when hearing the lyrics together with the music. I started where I knew I wanted an unexpected minor chord (those chords that sound more "sad"), for example before the chorus starts, and at the end of the chorus. This worked well to get the chorus to stand out with major chords (those chords that sound more "happy"). I wanted a dreamy, hopeful, and uplifting chorus so I put a repeat pattern in the piano, moving the baseline slowly to have a sense of stillness under the flowy movement. I finished the song like I started it, to end at a calm spot where you can continue dreaming.. There were more changes than these but those were the key ones.
The strings
When arranging the strings for Dancing Queen, I asked a Swedish talented string musician and arranger, Erik Arvinder. Probably every musician in Sweden knows of him and plenty of Americans as well since he lived in LA for 8 years. The Stockholm music scene is not that big so I figured he would know about me (even though I’m not as famous as he is 😁) but I was pleasantly surprised that he knew very well who I am since he is a fan of the a cappella group I’m a former member of! And the good news was, he was very excited about my project. And what are the odds that his dad played the violin on the actual recording of Dancing Queen?? Well, he did! I felt it was a sign :)
Erik was super easy to work with, so humble and professional. I had already arranged the piano so I got help from one of my best friends Matilda (yes her name is also Matilda!) to record a demo to send to him since I needed to play to a metronom in the exact tempo to make it easier for him to arrange over. After talking to him about my vision for the strings, I sent short voice memos about the different parts of the song. I had met with another best friend, Marika (both of them are in the music video!), to try out some of my string ideas which helped me be more clear in my instructions for Erik. But mostly, I just sang and explained the melodies, vibe, style, emotion I wanted. Here is a short voice memo where I give him instructions for the outro after the last chorus. It’s in Swedish :) but just so you get a feeling of how we worked.
After giving him the new chords, the demo and the instructions he came back to me with the full arrangement and I LOVED IT! Sure, I was detailed in my directions but I thought there would be some revisions. But Erik really understood my vision and took the arrangement to a whole new level! So happy about this collaboration! You can listen to the first takes of the strings in this video. They have my voice and the piano in their ears here, so you can only hear the strings. So pretty!
Recording
We recorded the strings in a bigger studio this time - The Gradwell House Studio in New Jersey. Great studio with great staff! (I ended up mastering all the songs there too because I liked them so much.) We almost doubled the strings so it got a fuller sound, it fitted the song better. Andrew is a fantastic conductor so he conducted the musicians while I was giving notes from the control room. It could go about something like in the video below where I’m instructing the cellist to play more dramatic and emphasised with stops in-between the strokes in the outro. Can you hear the drama? :)
After the strings came piano and then vocals. To be honest - I had to practice the piano part for quite some time, those fast notes are not to play with, haha! But it went well. Believe it or not, I find this to be the case in my songwriting very often - I make it hard to perform, haha!
I sent a recording of when I practiced the piano to my friend Marika, since she is a pianist as well (my friends are so talented! :)). Her feedback was to move up the voicing of the chords in the beginning. So if you listen to the final version, you can hear it..
The vocals has minor changes in the melody, they came naturally as I sat by the piano with the new arrangement. Also the way of singing it is different, to reflect the message.
Listen on your favorite platform!
Click the image to go to your favorite listening platform! And you can download it to your library below.
Dancing Queen Music Video
As I’ve mentioned and you have hopefully already seen it - I also made a music video for Dancing Queen! We managed to film it during the pandemic, and it was released during Women’s History Month. It’s extra special to me for many reasons, one of them being that a few of my best friends, talented musicians and strong women in my life, are in the video playing the strings! My director and videographer Oliva Arte did an amazing job capturing my vision, adding in her own ideas to enhance the art and the message. One of my favorite scenes is at the end when I have music rolling over my face - that’s all her idea!
I made a short behind the scenes video for you below!