World of Chig   

9.9.05

Ring, ring, ring goes the telephone,
The lights are on, but there’s no one home.
Tick, tick, tock, it’s a quarter to two,
I’m done, I’m hanging up on you.

Ev’ry little thing that you say or do,
Hung up, I’m hanging up on you.


So, the rumours were true, but not quite what we thought. Madonna's new single does indeed sample Abba. She even sings the words "ring, ring", but it's not Abba's Ring Ring that she's sampling - it is in fact Gimme, Gimme, Gimme (A Man After Midnight). Fascinatingly, it's a speeded up version of the track, just like erasure used to perform. It wasn't one of the four Abba tracks that they performed on the Abba-esque EP, but erasure used to perform Gimme Gimme Gimme live. I have a tape of them performing it on Radio 1 at the Milton Keynes Bowl with Whoo Gary Davies presenting, and it gets faster and faster towards the end, which Abba's 1979 original doesn't do. I also have it on the live Two Ring Circus album, which pre-dates the Abba-esque EP by a whole five years. The lyric to Gimme Gimme Gimme is also on erasure's official website.

Anyway, Madonna. Hung Up is a return to dancey pop! It’s a floor filler! It’s fantastic and I'm playing it on repeat (which, considering I only have a 28 second snippet, is very repetitive indeed).

Madge, welcome back. All is forgiven.

PS. Thank you - you know who you are.


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