Knowing Me, Knowing You PROMO

Filmed: January 1977

Location: Lidingö?, Lasse Hallström's apartment and SVT Studios, Stockholm, Sweden

Release status: See below

Duration: 3:58

Shown in: Worldwide

Additional information

Directed by Lasse Hallström.  Here he really ensured there were plenty of side-on and face-to-face shots.

Stig Anderson - rather famously - made very little budget available for the making of the early PROMO videos and this was no exception. Consequently, cheap or free locations were used wherever possible.

It's highly likely the snow scenes were shot at Lidingö, close to where all four ABBA members lived at that time.  Click here for a photo taken at the time of filming.

The interior shots were filmed inside Lasse Hallström's own apartment - where he would also go on to film the Happy New Year and One of Us PROMOs.  Note that a photograph taken at the time of filming has ABBA leaning against a distinctive wallpaper - which is the same that Agnetha uses in the One of Us PROMO, four years later.

In a film at the ABBA The Museum, Lasse Hallström reveals that while filming in his apartment, he used a sheet as a backdrop and that if you look closely, you can see that it wasn't ironed!

Apparently, Agnetha and Frida re-shot the second verse ("Memories, good days, bad days ..." etc) at SVT Studios a couple of days after the original shoot.  I used to think there was a fancy special effect on Agnetha's 'ghost' above Frida - but in truth, she was probably standing on chair with fuzzy spotlight on her.

Some extra footage was used in the PROMO for That's Me.

On Thursday 2 September 2021 the video to I Still Have Faith In You was premiered which featured a couple of seconds of unseen footage (around the 2:34 and 2:44 mark).

On Friday 17 February 2023, a new lyric video was released on ABBA's YouTube channel. Directors: Lucy Dawkins and Tom Readdy at Yes Please Productions.

On Sunday 24 December 2023, ABBA's social media released a Merry Christmas message of short bursts of unseen footage from the Knowing Me, Knowing You PROMO which was wonderful to see - to the tune of (presumably) Benny playing Little Things on the piano.

  1. Note when Frida and Agnetha are back-to-back, Agnetha never looks at the camera, but Frida constantly does.  Whether this was intentional, or just typical Agnetha/Frida performances, i do not know.
  2. Straight after the instrumental break, Frida and Agnetha almost run out of shot to the right of the screen ("Knowing Me, Knowing You ...")  to quickly get in the right positions for their next part ("there is nothing we can do.")
  3. I always got the impression Agnetha seemed very self-concious in the embracing shots
  4. It always breaks my heart to see Frida's face when Benny pulls away from their embrace.

Lyrics available on the Official ABBA site

 

YouTube links c/o AbbaVEVO and ABBA.

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