ABBA – Knowing Me, Knowing You

When Number One Number One Became A Prophecy

Released on February 14, 1977, Valentine’s Day, “Knowing Me, Knowing You” gave ABBA their fifth UK number one and stayed there for five weeks, becoming one of the biggest singles of the year. The song’s arrival coincided with two sold-out Royal Albert Hall concerts in London, ABBA’s first UK tour, where demand was so extraordinary they could have filled the venue every day for nearly a year. What audiences didn’t realize was that the working title for this devastating breakup song was “Number One Number One,” a prediction that came true on April 2, 1977 when it topped the UK charts and started a second run of three consecutive chart-toppers for the Swedish quartet.

The single hit number one in West Germany, making it ABBA’s sixth consecutive chart-topper there and selling over 300,000 copies by September 1979. It also reached number one in Ireland, Mexico, and South Africa, while climbing to number two in Austria and the Netherlands, and number three in Switzerland. In the United States, it peaked at number 14 on the Hot 100 and number seven on the Adult Contemporary chart, becoming their sixth top twenty single. By September 2021, it had become ABBA’s third-biggest song in the UK with over one million chart sales combined from pure sales and streaming. The song was competing against Leo Sayer’s “When I Need You” and Manhattan Transfer’s “Chanson d’Amour,” yet managed to dominate the spring charts with its emotionally raw portrayal of relationship collapse.

Björn Ulvaeus wrote the lyrics after listening to Benny Andersson’s music repeatedly until he visualized a specific scene: a house being emptied, with boxes standing against walls and all the furniture being taken away, just a few bits and pieces left behind, and the echoing steps of a man walking around those rooms remembering the past. The music had been completed with the prophetic working title when producer Stig Anderson suggested the final title, around which Ulvaeus built his story. The opening lines beautifully captured this sentiment of domestic dissolution, beginning with the chilling phrase about the absence of carefree laughter and silence ever after. Ulvaeus later admitted he wrote it before his own divorce from Agnetha Fältskog, though the strain in both couples within ABBA was already evident by 1976.

The recording took place on March 23, 1976 at Metronome Studios in Stockholm, with Michael B. Tretow engineering the session. Andersson and Ulvaeus produced the track, layering Anni-Frid Lyngstad’s lead vocals with Agnetha Fältskog’s harmonies over a deceptively upbeat arrangement featuring ARP synthesizers, mini-Moog, electric guitar, and live strings. The signature sound came from those nursery rhyme-like music box notes that Andersson and Ulvaeus employed, creating a gentle yet haunting backdrop for lyrics about marriage ending. The B-side, “Happy Hawaii,” was an early arrangement of another ABBA song, “Why Did It Have to Be Me?,” but with different lead vocals and lyrics, making it a curiosity for collectors.

“Knowing Me, Knowing You” appeared as the third single from their fourth album Arrival, released in 1976, which had already spawned the massive hit “Dancing Queen” and “Money, Money, Money.” The album marked a turning point in ABBA’s career, moving away from the jollity of their Eurovision days into more mature, emotionally complex territory. This was one of the first ABBA songs to deal with relationship breakdown, predating the actual divorces of both couples within the group and foreshadowing further breakup songs to come, including “The Winner Takes It All,” “One of Us,” and “When All Is Said and Done.” Benny Andersson himself named it one of ABBA’s best recordings in a 2004 interview, alongside “Dancing Queen,” “The Winner Takes It All,” and “When I Kissed the Teacher.”

The song has been covered by a diverse range of artists, from Cilla Black to Right Said Fred to Swedish pop group A-Teens. Marshall Crenshaw recorded a faithful version on his live album My Truck is My Home, while Elvis Costello regularly performed it in concert and called it the best song ever written about divorce. The song took on an unexpected second life in the 1990s when British comedians Steve Coogan and Armando Iannucci selected it as the theme for Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge, a BBC radio and TV show that introduced one of Britain’s greatest comedy characters. The selection was brilliantly cruel, choosing such an inappropriate song about divorce for a vapid chat show host’s signature catchphrase, with Coogan bellowing the two-word bridge after the title. The timing was ironically just before ABBA’s return to critical respectability.

Ulvaeus reflected on writing the song years later, explaining that his divorce from Agnetha was amicable, that they just grew apart and decided to split. Benny and Frida’s breakup was more difficult, he admitted, noting it was not a happy time but still very creative. The song stands as one of pop music’s most perfect expressions of divorce, with its glacially cold production fitting the mood perfectly, from the opening shots in the video of sun beaming down on winter snow to those trademark shots of the couples facing each other and turning away. Four decades on, despite its association with Alan Partridge, it still packs an emotional punch and remains a masterclass in turning heartbreak into timeless pop perfection.