For a decade she was one of the most famous faces in the world – then, when Abba broke up in 1982, Agnetha Faltskog walked away from the public eye. In her first major interview for three decades, she talks to Moira Petty about the loves and losses of the intervening years – and about ending her seclusion to record an album once again.
Agnetha Faltskog: 'In love there are many ups and downs, but I remain optimistic'
Passengers arriving at Stockholm’s Arlanda airport trundle through to the feel-good beat of Abba’s greatest hits. Honestly, it takes restraint not to execute a few dodgy disco moves as the tunes blast out from huge screens advertising Abba The Museum.
Once Sweden’s second most important export after Volvo, Abba is still, more than 30 years after disbanding, helping to sell the country’s brand to visitors. The new monument to the group’s decade of dancefloor dynamite is timely, as Agnetha Fältskog, always the most retiring of the Abba four, has emerged from her Swedish island home to release an album of new songs.
But my first glimpse of her is the 1978 Agnetha, all 1970s knitwear, high boots and pale blue eyeshadow, as the video for ‘Take A Chance On Me’ beams out across the arrivals hall. Then she’s full screen, eyes full of inky emotion, lips sticky with gloss, a bit tremulous, voice sliding magnificently from euphoria to anguish.
Since Abba abandoned a half-finished album in 1982, Agnetha has mainly hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons. The catalogue of disasters includes two broken marriages and a series of failed love affairs, a road traffic accident in 1983 – when she was thrown out of the window of a bus on a solo tour – an accumulation of phobias, the suicide of her mother in 1994 and the persistent attention of stalkers, with one obsessive ruining her last album release in 2004 (her first since the 1980s) when his threats caused all interviews to be suddenly cancelled.
Agnetha performing on stage with Abba in 1975
We meet in a brick, wood and slate house overlooking a sparkling lake on one of the many islands that surround Stockholm. This is home to Jörgen Elofsson, the co-producer and writer of her new album A. I am hanging out in the kitchen, a little bit tense, as she’s somewhere in this house having her make-up done.
Then she pads into view, en route to the bathroom, in white towelling dressing gown and slippers, hair in rollers, smiling broadly, with a friendly ‘Hi’ to everyone.
She exudes a Zen-like calm, the advantage no doubt of spending decades standing on her head because, as she tells me later, yoga and meditation helped rescue her from depression.
She is excited about her album and a little nervous, but it is full of lushly orchestrated numbers, every track about love and heartbreak, including a seductive duet with Gary Barlow. Her voice throughout sounds fantastic. ‘I will always be compared with Abba, with what was. I can only produce a good album, otherwise why would I do it? We had a joke about it. I said: “If I sound like an old woman, we won’t give it out. After a few times,
I kept saying: “This is not good.” So I trained and trained, took a couple of lessons, and suddenly on the third take it was there, and my voice sounds really young. I thought my previous record in 2004 was going to be my last. It’s not very common that you do records when you get past 60. Your voice changes, and your body, and you don’t have the same energy.’
Has she sung in the interim? ‘For myself, yes; at home, at the piano and with my grandchildren, but nothing professional.’
Oddly, the only people who have been shielded from the Abba legend are her three grandchildren, aged 12, six and three, the offspring of her actor daughter Linda, 40. Her son Christian, 35, a computer programmer, has no children but Agnetha, an ardent grandma, is keeping her fingers crossed. She is cautious about talking about the little ones for security reasons but says,
‘I spend a lot of time with the grandchildren. They love it when we sing together. It’s fantastic to hear them and they really can sing. I don’t talk to them so much about Abba and the past, but as they
get older they will become more aware. Already the eldest one, Tilda, knows a little bit more.’
She apologises for her English, which becomes charmingly fractured under pressure. She is creamy-skinned, well preserved, robust looking, and emanates a mature beauty. She gave up smoking in the 80s, rarely drinks, and leads a healthy life tucked away on another Swedish island far removed from the stresses of youth culture and cosmetic surgery. She listens to some contemporary pop on the radio (‘I like it if it’s not too hard and has melody...even rapping can be nice’) but doesn’t know who the performers are.
Agnetha and Frida: 'I married, was in Abba, had my children, divorced – all in ten years. I wonder how I managed it, but I was young'
Is she ready to leave this haven and embrace her public again, with all the madness it might bring? ‘I know that it is necessary if I am to get this CD out. It feels fantastic to meet new people again. I was very afraid of flying – I still am – so I had therapy. Now I am able to fly for three to three-and-a-half hours, no longer. The press has always written that I am a recluse and a mysterious woman, but I am more down-to-earth than they think.
I live on a farm and there is a little bridge to get to Stockholm. I live a normal life there with my pug Bella and my puppy Bruno, a rare breed, just a little bigger than a chihuahua, with these big ears. I chat to other dog walkers, I go shopping and out to restaurants with friends. I don’t mind signing autographs as long as there’s not a queue forming,’ she says with a hearty laugh. She is estimated to have a £20 million fortune. ‘It helps, but I don’t think about it much,’ she shrugs. ‘You can go shopping, and if you see something very special you can buy it.
‘Maybe I was a recluse for some years. I was so tired once Abba was over and just wanted to be calm and with my children. I married, was in Abba, had my children, divorced, all in ten years. I wonder how I managed it, but I was young.’
The pop behemoth that became Abba was formed in 1970, when Agnetha and her boyfriend Björn Ulvaeus teamed up with his songwriting pal Benny Andersson. Soon, Benny’s girlfriend Anni-Frid – also known as Frida – Lyngstad joined them. Both couples went on to marry and divorce. Abba
has sold 378 million records since 1972, the figure rising annually with new generations becoming fans after the success of Mamma Mia!, the stage musical and film. Having shunned other premieres of the musical, she turned out for the film premiere in Stockholm in 2008. ‘That was so exciting. Meryl Streep was really good in it.
I didn’t know that she could sing. She was very fresh and down-to-earth, not like a big star, and said, “It’s so good to meet you. I love these Abba songs.” She’s been into it a long time, singing the Abba songs. I think the Mamma Mia! craze is great.’
Adding to the buzz, Abba The Museum, an interactive exhibition in which visitors can record as if part of Abba, as well as peruse the band’s artefacts, will open on the island of Djurgården off Stockholm on Tuesday. ‘I didn’t keep any of my stage costumes from the Abba days. I have donated items to the museum, not very much but some things I had at home, some gold records, I can’t really remember. I think it’s nice that these things are in a place where they will be taken care of.’
Agnetha recalls Abba days with mixed emotions, as she found it hard dealing with global fame. ‘Fans would become really hysterical – banging on car doors. But very, very nice as well,’ she adds, not wishing to sound ungrateful for all this adoration. ‘Things that happened were quite incredible. We would arrive in our cars and there would be small children there and we were so scared that we were going to drive over someone or hurt them. Sometimes we could hardly leave our hotels. It was frightening, but we had so many people taking care of us and everyone wanted to show us the best [of their country] wherever we went. ’
Agnetha from ABBA as she is today
She admits that she grew to dread going on stage. When she and Frida caught the whiff of cannabis from the audience, they would joke about taking in a few lungfuls, but Agnetha preferred a glass of champagne to fire her up. ‘Performing live is not my favourite. I am more of a recording person; I prefer to be private. I didn’t mind doing videos, even if they came very close with the camera. I can take that, but walking on stage in concert and singing live, that is a bit difficult. And I don’t think we sounded or looked very good.’
For a minute I am in shock, thinking that she means the platform boots, satin jumpsuits and glittery make-up, but she is talking about their lacklustre choreography, which wouldn’t stand muster next to routines by Lady Gaga or Rihanna, with their troupes of backing dancers.
‘It was nice to look how we looked, but we had no professional dance help. We did it on feelings, so when we had our concerts it was different every night. Frida and I didn’t talk beforehand about what we were going to do.
We were very different types. We have been described as not being friends and in competition with each other, but we had something concrete between us on stage. There was some bad feeling when we were weary with our heavy schedule; little niggles, differences of opinion when we were a little irritated and tired of each other – and of ourselves.
‘But we helped each other a lot. If I felt I had a little cold, or Frida did, the other would work harder that night. During all of those times we worked so hard, through fevers and flu, and only ever cancelled two shows. The costumes were designed for us. I didn’t have the time to get involved with that, but Frida was more into it and had more time. We had to go and try everything and get measured, and I think they did a good job. Dancing in those platforms was OK, but I couldn’t do it today.’
Agnetha and Linda in 2009; 'The press have always written that I am a recluse and a mysterious woman, but I am more down to earth than they think'
Tours were never protracted, often 14 days off and 14 days on, which helped when she had her children. Did separations hurt? ‘Yes, but I didn’t feel guilty. I didn’t have any choice. When I was at home, I concentrated on the children. Linda was with us in California, but she was so little then, and my son was with us in London. I tried to explain [their lifestyle and work] to the children but it was hard for them to understand. It is difficult if your parents are famous but I tried not to spoil them.’
What is Agnetha’s favourite Abba song? ‘“The Winner Takes It All”,’ she says immediately. ‘Björn wrote it about us after the breakdown of our marriage. [They divorced in 1980.] The fact that he wrote it exactly when we divorced is touching really.’ Didn’t she hate reliving all that grief? ‘I didn’t mind.
It was fantastic to do that song because I could put in such feeling. I didn’t mind sharing it with the public. It didn’t feel wrong. There is so much in that song. It was a mixture of what I felt and what Björn felt, but also what Benny and Frida went through.
I always thought about the story behind those songs. I used to wonder what Björn and Benny were thinking about.’
Perhaps the hardest blow for Agnetha, who says she is ‘very sensitive’, was the death of her parents. Tragically, her mother Birgit, a former shop cashier, threw herself to her death from the sixth-floor flat in Jönköping where Agnetha had been raised. She was 71. ‘You knew about that?’ she whispers. ‘It was terrible. You wonder if you could have done something. Then my father [Ingvar, 73, once an administrator for a power company] died a year later. It’s so painful. You want them with you and to have known your grandchildren. I was depressed after that. Those were terrible years. I withdrew into myself and that was when I really began practising yoga because there was so much [emotion] coming out. I stayed at home a lot, meditated, listened to very special songs, lit candles. It helped heal me. You carry pain through your life, and when you get distance from it, you survive – but it never leaves you.
‘They were good parents. I started to compose when I was five years old, but had to use a neighbour’s piano. My parents made sacrifices to buy me a piano when I was seven. I used to play the harpsichord alone in the church. When I was 12, I played a fooj’ (fooj? Fudge? Ah, fugue!) ‘by Bach to an audience. I could never do that today.’
By 1965, aged 15, she was in a pop trio, the Chambers, with her friends Lena and Elisabeth, all hoping to become ‘world famous’. Then she became a singer with a dance band, and when its leader sent a demo to a record company, they were only interested in Agnetha. At 17, she had her first solo number one in Sweden and was on her way. Her younger sister, Mona, took over her job as a switchboard operator, and took the bus 175 miles with her parents to visit Agnetha in Stockholm. Agnetha couldn’t persuade the family to take money from her or move to the city because they felt that they would be out of their depth.
Abba in 1974. Sweden's victors after their success in the Eurovision Song Contest in Brighton with 'Waterloo'
Back in those more unguarded days, she offered tantalising glimpses of herself in interviews with Swedish publications, which visited her at home with Björn. He was then a member of popular folk group The Hootenanny Singers, and she had fallen in love with him when they recorded a TV show together in 1969. ‘He’s grumpy in the morning.’ ‘He buys me flowers after I’ve done the cleaning.’ ‘Sometimes I fall out of love with life.’ The happy housewife, the sensitive soul, the occasional depressive were laid bare.
The teenage Agnetha drove men crazy, especially when she wore a pink jumpsuit with a large heart-shaped cut-out on the abdomen, which caused one Swedish reporter to slaver unpleasantly about her ‘sexy little tummy’. Another declared his temperature had been normal before he knocked on her door and dissolved into a description of ‘peachy skin’ and ‘hair like frozen waterfalls’.
This was just from Swedish journalists, so no wonder she became alarmed when stalkers became a fixture. Probably the worst was Dutch forklift truck driver Gert van der Graaf, 16 years her junior, who set up home a quarter of a mile from hers on the island of Ekero, west of Stockholm. When he turned sinister, police raided his cabin, which had become a shrine to her, and he reappeared with threats in 2004.
Does she find it easy to decide who is genuine? ‘I don’t think I’m very good at judging people. Sometimes I get a bad feeling but not very often. I have a very open heart and mind.
I want to give everyone a chance.’ I sympathise that it must be hard to meet new people, and in a mastery of understatement she replies: ‘Yes, I’m not only well-known in Sweden.’
Sweden's most famous sons and daughters welcome visitors at Stockholm's Arlanda airport
She once compared the behaviour of poker-faced Swedes in a lift adversely with the chattiness of Americans, but now talks approvingly of ‘Swedish reserve: they respect you a lot’. The Swedish winter she finds less congenial – ‘It is too long and cold and can really make you tired’ – but now that she can fly, she breaks it up with holidays in sunnier spots such as Majorca. ‘On my ordinary days I don’t look like this,’ she says pointing to photo-ready hair and make-up. ‘So people don’t recognise me. And in winter we are fully dressed [she mimes pulling a hood over her head] so as not to freeze.
‘I see Björn now and then, when the children have birthdays, but he moved to London and started a new life, and he and his wife are grandparents too.’
It was reported that he was suffering from some kind of memory loss and had forgotten parts of his early career and life. ‘I know, but I haven’t talked to him about that,’ she says. ‘We don’t have that sort of relationship.’
She doesn’t seem to regret her absence from music for so long, saying, ‘I’m not jealous of the boys,’ as she calls Benny and Björn, who have continued songwriting, mainly for musicals. In 1969, she joked that when it came to songwriting, ‘Björn is almost as good at me.’ By the time they were in Abba, he could not persuade her to take time away from the children to compose for the group.
She talks about being ‘self-critical’ and ‘lacking self-confidence’, especially in this new and exposing project. She has written just one song for the album, ‘I Keep Them on the Floor Beside My Bed’, about the mementos of love. It contains lyrics such as: ‘I never thought my heart would break so easily…I should have stayed and worked it out.’ She had a German record producer fiancé before Björn, and after her divorce had a series of high-profile boyfriends, including a fashion designer, ice hockey star and police inspector. There was also a second marriage in 1990 to a surgeon and karate expert, which lasted two years.
Agnetha with her co-producer Jörgen Elofsson in his studio
I wonder if her new song was about Björn, but she says, ‘Björn and I have dealt with the heartbreak. It is amicable. In love, there are so many ups and downs, but I remain optimistic about it. I haven’t closed any doors.’
Jörgen, who has written for Britney Spears, Celine Dion, Westlife and many others, contacted Agnetha last year, and he and co-producer Peter Nordahl got to know her and then presented her with their new songs. ‘My God!’ she squeals. ‘A Swedish girl was on the demos and I said, “Why can’t she do this?”’ But the songs reflect the romantic war wounds of an older woman.
‘I was a little scared of the mic and thought, “How am I supposed to do this?”
The answer was, “In your own way” because it’s one of the few things I really can do and am good at. I go into a bubble as if I was in a film role and bring my life and experience into that.’
Gary Barlow flew to Jörgen’s home studio to co-write a song, ‘Should Have Followed You Home’. Despite the title, it is not about stalkers but a missed romantic opportunity after a dancefloor meeting. Agnetha was away in Majorca but due to fly back for Gary’s last day until her travel plans changed. It isn’t clear whether this was a mishap or due to her anxiety over singing the duet, but they recorded separately. Still, her eyes glitter as she says: ‘When I heard his voice in the headphones,
I thought: “Oh, I have to match this enormous, cool voice and the way he sings.”’ She purrs, ‘It’s verrry sexy and a very good song. I hope to meet him in London.’ The album also contains a 1970s disco-style number, ‘Dance Your Pain Away’, which Jörgen wrote with her gay fans in mind.
After so many half-hearted forays back into music, this seems the right album – mature, considered, sounding like a hit – at the right time. Other forces were needed, she agrees, to kick-start this return, but now she believes, ‘It was really meant to be.’
Agnetha’s new album A will be released by Polydor on 13 May. To see an extract of a video interview with Agnetha, go to you.co.uk
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