Chiquitita
| Chiquitita | |
|---|---|
| ABBA | |
| publication | January 16, 1979 |
| length | 5:26 |
| Genre (s) | pop |
| Author (s) | Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus |
| album | Voulez-Vous |
Chiquitita is a ballad by the Swedish pop group ABBA from 1979. It was written by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus , with Agnetha Fältskog taking care of the lead vocals . The piece was released as a single with B-side Lovelight in January 1979 and became a significant hit for the group. The text is about the encouragement of a close friend who tries to get over the grief of a lost love.
The song has a Latin American influence in its title , which means something like "(my) little one" in Spanish. With the Spanish version of Chiquitita , ABBA established its success in Spanish-speaking countries, particularly in Spain, Argentina and Mexico. This was followed in 1980 by more ABBA songs with Spanish lyrics, as well as the album Gracias por la música .
Creation and publication
The first recordings for Chiquitita took place on December 4th and 5th, 1978 at Polar Music Studios in Stockholm. Under the working title "Kålsupare", which came from the sound engineer Michael B. Tretow , the first takes were made that were more in the direction of rock songs . Soon it was decided to wind up the new piece differently and turn it into a ballad. The work was continued under the working title “In the Arms of Rosalita”. Although the new song was recorded to the end, including the vocal parts of the band members, it was finally decided to try again with different lyrics and a different structure. In the documentary The Winner Takes It All - The ABBA Story produced in 1999, short excerpts from "In the Arms of Rosalita" can be heard.
The backing track of this piece was then used as the basis for a new version, which was recorded between December 13 and 21, 1978. Working titles were "Kålsupare II" and "Three Wise Guys". The musicians were inspired u. a. by El cóndor pasa , which became world famous in 1970 through Simon & Garfunkel . The new text that Björn Ulvaeus subsequently wrote was initially titled "Chiquitita Angelina" before it was revised and finally got its final form. Since the success of ABBA in Spanish-speaking countries had hardly occurred up to that point, Buddy McCluskey of RCA Records in Argentina suggested recording an ABBA song in Spanish. He himself wrote the text together with his wife Mary McCluskey. The Spanish version of Chiquitita was recorded on March 8, 1979.
On January 8, 1979 ABBA placed the song at a UNICEF - benefit concert as a contribution to the "International Year of the Child by the United Nations in 1979" in the "General Assembly Hall of the United Nations" in New York. On January 16, 1979 the song was released as a single. ABBA donated the proceeds from the single to UNICEF. To this day, all income generated by the song is passed on to UNICEF, which has since been the owner of the license rights to this song. In the US, the single was only released by Atlantic Records in November.
On February 14, 1979, the group went to Switzerland for a few days to shoot the TV special ABBA in Switzerland . In addition to ski recordings and interviews, the group shot a music video for Chiquitita on the afternoon of February 15 , which was filmed by BBC cameramen . It is one of the few ABBA videos that was not directed by Lasse Hallström . The Jackson Five also performed in front of the big snowman on the same day . Today nobody knows why the snowman became the backdrop. The special is included on the Deluxe Edition of the album Voulez-Vous today .
success
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After the previous singles Eagle and Summer Night City had only had moderate success, Chiquitita became a kind of "comeback world hit". The single reached number 1 in Switzerland , Belgium , the Netherlands , Ireland , Spain , New Zealand , Finland , Portugal, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Argentina, Mexico and Costa Rica.
In Great Britain, the single was the first since Take a Chance on Me to climb to number 2 and thus back to the top 3, so that it received the gold record for 575,000 copies . In addition, Chiquitita reached the top five in Germany and also became the first ABBA single in more than two years in Australia. In Spain, the English version held a gold award for 100,000 units sold.
The Spanish single turned out to be very successful in many Spanish-speaking countries. The English version reached number 7 in Argentina and sold 25,000 copies, while the Spanish single topped the charts and sold 500,000 copies. But also in Colombia, Venezuela, Uruguay, Panama, Costa Rica and El Salvador, Chiquitita in its Spanish version became a hit. It sold 75,000 each in Chile and Ecuador. In Mexico it topped the Spanish-language single charts for 30 weeks and sold 450,000 copies together with the English version.
Cover versions
The Spanish singer Amaia Montero reached first place in the Spanish charts with her version of the song in 2010.
literature
- Carl Magnus Palm: Light and Shadow. ABBA - The real story. Bosworth Musikverlag, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86543-100-4 (German translation: Helmut Müller).
- Carl Magnus Palm: Abba. Story and songs compact. Bosworth Music, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-86543-227-8 ( compact story and songs ), (German translation: Cecilia Senge).
- Carl Magnus Palm: ABBA - The Complete Recording Sessions. Revised and Expanded Edition. CMP Text / CPI Group, 1st edition 2017, 447 pages. ISBN 978-91-639-2656-3 .
swell
- ↑ January Gradvall, Petter Karlsson: ABBA - The whole story in 600 images. G + J NG Buchgesellschaft mbH, Hamburg 2014, p. 289
- ↑ Charts DE Charts AT Charts CH Charts UK Charts US Charts SE
- ↑ ABBA sales: UK sales ( Memento from October 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ see bpi.co.uk
- ↑ a b c d Billboard Magazine 1979 ABBA 5 Years ( Spain and Argentina sections ), accessed September 16, 2014
- ↑ Chart discography Spain (until 2013) / official charts
Web links
- The Chiquitita Story . Retrieved July 23, 2018
- Single cover
- Lyrics on golyr.de
- Music video on YouTube
Remarks
- Carl Magnus Palm: ABBA - The Complete Recording Sessions. Revised and Expanded Edition. CMP Text / CPI Group, 1st edition 2017, 447 pages. ISBN 978-91-639-2656-3 .