Dancing Queen: 40 Years On

Dancing Queen is a song whose power is hard to resist. It’s the record [Pete] Waterman calls his “get-out-of-jail card … Whenever I lost the floor as a DJ, I just stuck Dancing Queen on.” It’s a track even the Queen is supposedly fond of boogying to (Chris Evans claimed that she told him: “I always try to dance when this song comes on because I am the Queen and I like to dance”).

If you’re left in any doubt over Dancing Queen’s charms, then just consider the 1996 Sex Pistols reunion show in Finsbury park, north London. To remind the audience just how stale the music scene had grown before Johnny Rotten et al came along, the PA blasted out the likes of the Bay City Rollers and other cheesy 70s pop staples. Unfortunately, that playlist also included Abba’s Dancing Queen – when it came on, the old punks gathered together failed to sneer: instead they began singing in unison. As Craymer says: “That’s what people do with Dancing Queen – they just surrender.”

Tim Jonze, The Guardian.

It's ABBA, not Abba, Tim - ABBA.