osmosis

The song stuck in my head this morning was Abba’s “Take A Chance On Me,” a song I’m not particularly fond of but nevertheless know all the words to. I know all the words to a lot of Abba songs, which is kind of odd because I never turned the radio up when I heard one, I never bought any of their albums, and I don’t even like Abba very much. I think probably I soaked up all the words just because their songs used to be on the radio so often. I mean, like, constantly. Also, it didn’t hurt that I could actually understand them when they sang. I liked Elton John’s music quite a lot but I didn’t know until recently that “Bennie and the Jets” even had words because I couldn’t understand a thing Elton John said, and when I say “understand” I mean it in the sense that he sang like he had a mouthful of marbles, and in the sense that the lyrics to a lot of his songs were nonsensical. The opening lines of “Bennie and the Jets,” for instance, are: “Hey, kids, shake it loose together, the spotlight’s hitting something that’s been known to change the weather, we’ll kill the fatted calf tonight.” Abba, on the other hand, enunciated the words of their songs so clearly, and the words made some kind of sense. “If you change your mind, I’m the first in line, honey I’m still free, take a chance on me” is an opening line that meant something to a lot of teenagers.