I’m mostly agnostic about ABBA: good pop music I’ve no real desire to put on myself but I wouldn’t turn off the radio if they came on. They were omnipresent when I was growing up and I know most of their hits. One thing I noticed a long time ago however is that they were far more sophisticated than their reputation as purveyors of plastic pop made them out to be. Many of their songs are actually deeply ambiguous about love and being in a relationship, even their most simple ones. The Joy of ABBA, shown above, is a BBC4 documentary which argues the same. I thought it might be interesting to look at some of their hits in this light.