Liner notes
"Take a Chance on Me" is a song recorded in 1977 by Swedish dance-pop group ABBA. It was the second single to be released from their fifth album, simply called The Album, and has appeared on numerous ABBA compilations such as ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits.
The working title of "Take a Chance on Me" was "Billy Boy". Written and recorded in 1977 by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, it was sung by Agnetha Fältskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, with Fältskog delivering the solo passages. It was one of ABBA's first singles in which their manager Stig Anderson did not lend a hand in writing the lyrics, firmly establishing Andersson and Ulvaeus as a songwriting partnership. The song's origins sprang from Ulvaeus, whose hobby was running. While running, he would sing a "tck-a-ch"-style rhythm to himself over and over again, which then evolved into "take-a-chance" and the eventual lyrics. The song's B-side was "I'm a Marionette", which, like "Thank You for the Music" and "I Wonder (Departure)" (the B-side to their previous single, "The Name of the Game"), was intended to be part of a mini-musical entitled The Girl with the Golden Hair that Andersson and Ulvaeus had planned, but ultimately shelved.
"Take a Chance on Me" proved to be one of ABBA's most successful chart hits. It was released in January 1978, and spent three weeks at number 1 in the UK. It also topped the charts in Austria, Belgium, Ireland and Mexico, and was a top 3 hit in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), the Netherlands, Switzerland, West Germany and the United States, where it allegedly sold more copies than "Dancing Queen" (though, unlike the latter, it did not manage to top the charts, peaking at number 3). "Take a Chance on Me" also reached the top 10 in South Africa, Canada, Norway and France.
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