Clip video: ABBA's Little Things, written by Benny Anderson and Björn Ulvaeus, arranged for us by Göran Arnberg, recorded for @BBCRadio4 Today Programme.
Our guest editor today is Björn Ulvaeus from ABBA. Their song Chiquitita hasn't earned them a penny - instead the money has been spent fighting poverty in Latin America
Björn found it quite emotional listening to some of those helped by the project
The United Nations declared 1979 the Year Of The Child. Abba generously donated all royalties for Chiquitita to UNICEF, thus raising millions for them. It reached no. 2 in Britain, and had similar success across Europe.
Abba's manager Stig Anderson was a marketing genius. He realised that foreign speaking markets could be captured by recording in their own language. Abba re-recorded many of their best songs in Spanish for the South American fans. No other major group took the trouble to do this, but Abba did and that was typical of their considerate approach.
The Spanish version of Chiquitita was recorded on March 8 1979. The lyrics were written by Buddy & Mary McCluskey who worked for RCA in Argentine.
Buddy said "Abba were already popular here, but this record made the break for them. Both versions were hits, but the Spanish one was the biggest smash. I helped Agnetha and Frida with their Spanish pronounciation and found they were very good at languages already, now they are perfect."
This performance was recorded in Madrid on May 28 1979 for broadcast to Spanish speaking countries. The girls Spanish is indeed perfect here, they sing the difficult lyrics without any hesitations. They were presented with a gold disc for sales of this song afterwards.
The Spanish version was released as a single on June 12 1979, with colossal success. It reached no. 1 in Spain, Argentine, Mexico and most South American countries.
Abba had put their fans first again! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzkT57HpeUo
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ABBA performing Chiquitita in Germany,1979. This song is the most known ABBA song in my country (Colombia, but the spanish version),
Did you know...
*The royalities of this song were donated to Unicef.
*Chiquitita had a lot of working titles like"In the arms of Rosalita" "Three wise guys" "Chiquitita Angelina" and "Kålsupare"
*This song was in first place in 11 countries, being the most succesful ABBA song in Latinamerica.
ABBA presentando Chiquitita en Alemania, 1979.Esta canción es la más conocida de ABBA en mi país(Colombia, pero en la versión en español),
Sabias que...
*Esta cancion fue donada a Unicef.
*Chiquitita tuvo muchos titulos de trabajo como "In the arms of Rosalita"(en los brazos de Rosalita),"Chiquitita Angelina", "Three wise guys"(3 chicos sabios)and "Kålsupare"
*Esta cancion obtuvo el primer lugar en 11 paises, siendo la cancion mas exitosa de ABBA en Latinoamerica
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