When I was young I loved ABBA. I had every album, and knew every word to every song. I can still very clearly picture the album cover of Arrival, with them all in a helicopter. I was 7 when that album came out. I would sit in my room singing along to my portable record player while pretending I was part of the group and probably imaging we were on American Bandstand being interviewed by Dick Clarke.
My 14 year old daughter recently told me that she and her friend watched the first Mama Mia! movie and that they wanted to see the sequel with their moms. I was thrilled, cause what mother of a 14 year old girl isn't thrilled any time her daughter wants to voluntarily spend time with her?
This past weekend the group of us went. Before we left I asked Alexa to play some ABBA songs and was surprised that my daughter knew the words. (Score #2, she likes one of my "old" bands!)
The movie was cute, campy, cheesy and silly and, of course, the music is catchy. But at its heart, it's a story about mothers and daughters; the good and the bad parts, the joys and disappointments, but most of all, the bond that is eternally a part of us. I'm not giving anything away when I say that I teared up at one point that especially tugged at my maternal heartstrings.
I realized while watching the movie that my mother and I shared our love of ABBA. I still remember that her favorite song was Fernando. While we did not agree on much musically, we had ABBA (and also Tony Orlando and Dawn, cause that Tie a Yellow Ribbon song was catchy and their prime time show was cute.) I occurred to me that me liking ABBA meant as much to my mother as my daughter liking ABBA means to me. It's something that we share. ABBA crossed generational music tastes. It's part of my youth that my daughter can now experience and appreciate. And until they make a movie based on Duran Duran songs, music from my youth that she actually enjoys. (Can someone get moving on that Duran Duran movie, please?)
When we got home I found an ABBA greatest hits CD and showed it to her and she smiled. You better believe that CD will get played now as much as that vinyl Arrival album did.
