Mamma Mia!

[ForrestGump]

Went to see Mamma Mia at the beautiful Pantages Theater in Hollywood (expensive, not that I paid, and I got an excellent seat) and so my mind's been reeling with Abba songs ever since. Good thing I like their tuneage, thanks largely to them being a significant part of the musical landscape before I entered my teens.

Anyway, it was an excellent show. I've never been one for a lot of plays, but I've enjoyed most that I've been to and I really liked this one. The thing I wanted to say here was that it struck me that some of the songs I remember from kidhood have dimensions to them a little in excess of what I've always assumed. Perhaps it was the context provided by the play that brought that out.

Regardless, the song "Knowing Me Knowing You" took on a whole other personality as it was used in the show. Kind of dark. And, listening to it, it is kind of dark. Further, there's something about the vocal flow that I think would really suit it to a serious performance by a male rocker who has a powerful and operatic voice -- I was thinking along the lines of Roy Orbison or Elvis, or jay of Jay and the Americans, but Meatloaf would be a fairly appropriate living counterpart. I really think it could actually work. I think it was done by a man in the play -- can't recall right now -- and the dude I'm thinking of had a tenor voice and there was indeed anger present in the delivery.

Just a thought. Someone get me a recording contract and I'll give it a try myself, dammit...it's high concept, baby.

Knowing me, knowing you
There ain't nothing we can do

[Dookus]

1. Heheh...

when it was touring before Broadway, I took my ex to see it in San Francisco, cuz he was a huge ABBA fan. I wasn't.

I was after seeing that play, though. I saw it the next time it came through town, too!

[ForrestGump]

5. Gimme gimme gimme

another ticket to that show...I'd definitely do it again, too!

[Lou_C]

2. You got me singing Abba songs now

Can you hear the drums Fernando...

[ForrestGump]

7. Sorry about that

:D

[Lou_C]

9. Abba was a favorite of mine

:pals:

[Rabrrrrrr]

3. I can't imagine anything closer to a living hell

But I'm glad you enjoyed yourself, and I support your good time!!

ABBA is kinda fun music, and I'm especially interested that you found new depths to the lyrics. I might have been selling ABBA short, at least in terms of lyrics.

Bravo to you for enjoying the hell out of the evening and getting yourself a front row seat! Way cool. Andin the end of it, aesthetic arguments aside, when it comes to art the most - and I mean the most - important thing is "Did it move you? Did you enjoy it?" And if you can answer yes, then it was a success, no matter what pretentious reviewers, like me, might say about it.

(And let me also add, just in terms of accuracy, you did not see a play, you saw a musical, which is a play with musical numbers in it, as opposed to a play which has no music, or an opera, which is a play set entirely to music, or music theater, which is a play that has music but no dialogue but isn't as fully musical as an opera and tends to also have deliberate physical movements and/or dance, etc., but I'm rambing and getting into rather rarified definitions, so let me say that Mama Mia is indeed a musical, not a play. Sorry for the longwindedness.)

[ForrestGump]

6. So...what you're saying is...

that I whistle show tunes?!?

:P

[ForrestGump]

10. By the way, yes, I've been re-exploring Abba's lyrics

and there's some deep stuff there. The whole Fernando thing, for example, was obviously a paen to Ché. Then there's "Money, Money, Money," a scathing evaluation of the paternalistic and capitalistic power structure that dominated western societies at the time of release and, for the most part, continues to do so.

This is the sort of thing that outstrips Dylan for social commentary. Indeed, I could easily picture Bob Dylan wheezing his dischordant way through an album of Abba homages -- I'd suggest "Bob does Bjorn and Benni" if it weren't already the title of a Swedish X-rated movie.

[Scooter24]

4. I saw it...

in Las Vegas a few months ago. It was great.

Doesn't come close to Les Miserables though :)

[ForrestGump]

8. Who is this dude, Les, and why is he so miserable alla time?