By Mark Savage Arts and entertainment reporter, BBC News
Agnetha Faltskog says the media
has formed the wrong impression of her as a mysterious Greta Garbo of pop
One of pop's most enigmatic voices has
emerged with her first album in nine years. Agnetha Faltskog's new album sees
her duet with Gary Barlow and collaborate with Britney Spears' Swedish
songwriting team. Just don't call her "mysterious".
Forty-five years ago, before Abba were even a twinkle in
Eurovision's eye, Agnetha Faltskog made her very first TV appearance.
Aged just 17, she performed Jag Var Sa Kar (I Was So In Love), a syrupy
self-penned waltz, on Swedish TV show Studio 8.
The melancholy lyrics, inspired by her idol Connie Francis, were a stark
contrast to the exuberant blonde singer, who "took the radio in my arms and
danced around" when she first heard her single on the air.
Little did she know, misery would become her musical forte, especially when
she teamed up with Benny, Bjorn and Anni-Frida to form Abba.
"I'm very earth-grounded and very normal, I just like to
stay at home”
The songs on which Faltskog took lead vocals - Hasta
Manana, The Name Of The Game, Chiquitita - were the band's biggest tear-jerkers.
On The Winner Takes It All, recorded as her marriage to Bjorn Ulvaeus fell
apart, the emotion is almost too much to bear.
Faltskog is by turns defiant and broken. "I was in your arms, thinking I
belonged there," she cries, as her husband merely shakes her hand and turns
away.
Oddly, the singer calls it "her biggest favourite" from the band's back
catalogue. "It's a shame we never got to play it live," she adds.
Since the band went their separate ways in 1982, the girl with golden hair
has been the band's most elusive member. She largely shuns the limelight, living
quietly on the secluded island of Ekero, west of Stockholm.
Perhaps because of those world-weary lyrics, she was portrayed as a frail
recluse - the Greta Garbo of pop.
The revelation in 2000 that she had entered a relationship with an obsessed
Dutch fan, 16 years her junior, who turned dangerous when she broke off the
affair, only added to the perception that she was lonely and unhappy.
Nervous return
Today, she cannot talk about the relationship for legal reasons, but Faltskog
says the media have the wrong impression of her private life.
"I have been described as a very mysterious human being and that hurts a
little bit, because it's not like that at all," she says.
Agnetha Faltskog says she had
totally fallen out of the practice of singing since her Abba days
On the phone from Stockholm, she is neither awkward nor reticent, although
she chooses her words carefully, sometimes with the aid of an interpreter.
Laughter peppers the conversation, and she denies any suggestion she's a
hermit.
"I'm very earth-grounded and very normal," she says. "I just like to stay at
home."
Fate came to her house 18 months ago, when Swedish producer Jorgen Elofsson
rang the doorbell, hoping to to play Faltskog three songs he had written for
her.
An internationally successful composer, his credits include Britney Spears'
Crazy and Kelly Clarkson's Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You). His dream was to
coax Faltskog out of a nine-year hiatus and back into the studio.
"It was flattering," says the singer. "It really was."
"I just couldn't say 'no'. I really loved the songs from the beginning."
But before Faltskog would enter the studio, she had some conditions.
"I told him, 'we have to talk about a lot of things first,'" she recalls. "It
was nine or 10 years since I'd sung, so I didn't know if [my voice] worked."
"I said from the beginning, 'if it sounds old I don't want to do this,
because... Why should I?'"
Tasteful and sumptuous
Listening to the album, simply titled 'A', it is clear that Faltskog's vocal
cords are in fine shape.
Agnetha Faltskog has
collaborated with Gary Barlow but they have never met
Elofsson, for his part, has ditched the upfront production of his teen pop
hits for a sound Faltskog calls "very mature and worthy".
"When you love someone, and you've lost that one, then nothing really
matters," sighs Faltskog on the first single, When You Really Love Someone.
On the closing track, the singer scatters photos of an old lover across her
bedroom floor and wonders what happened to their relationship.
Ripe with bittersweet emotion, the song is her sole contribution as a
composer. You wonder why she didn't write more.
Faltskog says she simply fell out of practice.
"During the Abba years the boys were writing nearly all the material and I
didn't have any time. They asked me a lot - but when we were at home, I just
wanted to be with my children.
"For this album, we had an idea that maybe I should try to write one song. I
didn't want to do more. I'm not that composer that composes every day. But it
was very exciting to see if it still worked - and it did!"
The album doesn't reinvent the pop wheel, but is tasteful and sumptuous,
rarely raising its tempo above "mid".
One exception is Dance Your Pain Away, where disco strings stab at a
gymnastic bassline, apparently summoned from the dusty off-cuts of Abba's Voulez
Vous.
Another stand-out is I Should Have Followed You Home, where Faltskog trades
lines with Gary Barlow.
"We haven't even met," Faltskog reveals. "I spoke to him once on the phone -
but I was on holiday when he did his singing."
She hopes to meet Barlow on a forthcoming promotional trip to the UK, but
says there are currently "no plans" for them to perform the song together
live.
Tornado trauma
Faltskog's trip to the UK may come as a surprise to some seasoned
Abba-watchers. During the band's heyday, she had a rule that she would never
leave home for more than two weeks at a time, so she wouldn't be separated from
her children (both born in the midst of Abbamania).
A nervous flyer, she arranged to travel separately from Ulvaeus for the sake
of the children, in case anything should happen to either of them in mid-air.
Agnetha Faltskog says an Abba
reunion is unlikely ever to happen
Then, towards the end of Abba's 1979 US tour, the band had a quick turnaround
between gigs in New York and Boston.
Faltskog boarded a chartered jet, which previously belonged to millionaire
aviator Howard Hughes, and flew straight into the middle of a tornado which
forced Boston's airfield to close.
Running out of fuel, in a pitch black sky, the pilot performed an emergency
landing in Manchester, New Hampshire. The first attempt was aborted at the last
minute, pulling up just before the wheels hit the runway. Fortunately, the plane
touched down on the second try.
Since then, she has largely avoided flying - even coming to the UK "by bus
once" for a promotional trip.
"But nowadays I have started to fly again," she says. "I have gone to a man -
a therapist - who taught me to think in another way, a very positive way. It
works. It helps, at least."
The 62-year-old says she's looking forward to coming back to the UK, and
speaks fondly of Abba's seven-day residency in London's Wembley Arena in
1979.
"People's reaction was fantastic on Dancing Queen," she says. "And otherwise,
it was very nice with Thank You For The Music."
She enjoys the memories of Abba, and has donated costumes and memorabilia to
the Abba Museum which will open in Sweden in May ("it is very strange to have a
museum in your honour!"), but cannot see the band reforming.
"It was such a long time ago, and we are getting older, and we have our
different lives," she says.
For now, she is concentrating on the new record - one she thought she might
never make, and one which could be her last.
"I think to look in the future, to plan another one, it's not realistic right
now. But I don't close any doors. I'm very open for what comes up. At the
moment, we are so happy with this one. I really hope people will like it as much
as we do."
Agnetha's single When You Really Love Someone is out now. Her album, A,
follows later this year.
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