A promise is a promise, and when I make a promise, I keep it.  And thus I am playing today the single most depressing holiday song never heard before!  Back in August, our dear friend Clive asked me to play this one by Swedish group ABBA on January 1st.  I didn’t listen to the song then, just thought the title was appropriate for January 1st, so I promised that I would play it.  And now, it is January 1st … and I am playing it.  Next year, Clive, I’m returning to Auld Lang Syne or something else!

The song’s working title back in 1980 was “Daddy Don’t Get Drunk on Christmas Day,” if that gives you any idea.

According to SongFacts, the song was written by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus of ABBA during a working holiday in Barbados. The song actually started life as an idea for a musical. The plot was to be centered around a New Year’s Eve, a thought that got into Björn and Benny’s heads on a plane over to the island. They ran into the comedian John Cleese at the holiday resort and asked him if he would be interested in writing a manuscript. When Cleese turned them down, the idea was abandoned.

It originally had a very limited release as a single in December of 1980, but the Spanish version, Felicidad, did somewhat better in the Spanish-speaking countries that year, hitting the #5 spot in Argentina.  In 1999, the English version of the song was re-released for the new millennium, and charted at #27 in Sweden, #15 in the Netherlands and #75 in Germany.  As far as I can tell, it has never charted in Canada, the UK, or the U.S.  Gee, I wonder why?  The one positive thing I can say is that the voices are nice. Anyway … this one’s for you, Clive!  Happy New Year!!!

Happy New Year

ABBA

No more champagne
And the fireworks are through
Here we are, me and you
Feeling lost and feeling blue
It’s the end of the party
And the morning seems so grey
So unlike yesterday
Now’s the time for us to say

Happy New Year
Happy New Year
May we all have a vision now and then
Of a world where every neighbor is a friend
Happy New Year
Happy New Year
May we all have our hopes, our will to try
If we don’t we might as well lay down and die
You and I

Sometimes I see
How the brave new world arrives
And I see how it thrives
In the ashes of our lives
Oh yes, man is a fool
And he thinks he’ll be okay
Dragging on, feet of clay
Never knowing he’s astray
Keeps on going anyway

Happy New Year
Happy New Year
May we all have a vision now and then
Of a world where every neighbor is a friend
Happy New Year
Happy New Year
May we all have our hopes, our will to try
If we don’t we might as well lay down and die
You and I

Seems to me now
That the dreams we had before
Are all dead, nothing more
Than confetti on the floor
It’s the end of a decade
In another ten years time
Who can say what we’ll find
What lies waiting down the line
In the end of eighty-nine

Happy New Year
Happy New Year
May we all have a vision now and then
Of a world where every neighbor is a friend
Happy New Year
Happy New Year
May we all have our hopes, our will to try
If we don’t we might as well lay down and die
You and I

Writer/s: Benny Andersson, Bjoern K Ulvaeus
Publisher: Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind