At the time that “Dancing Queen” came out, it was easy to hate a disco song — disco was despised by practically everyone I knew (with the exception of the kids who liked to roller skate). And though I didn’t quite understand why, everyone in my immediate orbit — especially the men — treated disco, and the culture around it, as something offensive and legitimately wrong. It wasn’t just corny, it was a world-destroying force that we must all unite against. And, of course, most of this had to do with the specter of a single adjective, one I’d never heard applied to music before: disco was “gay.”
At the time, I didn’t even know what the word meant. In my young mind, it just meant “bad.” It was years before I understood that part of the hatred and derision directed at disco then was rooted in homophobia.
All of this was hard to parse as a child. Add to this the fact that, musically, disco was a technology-embracing reinterpretation of Black American musical forms that, as a movement, seemed to be utterly ignoring the traditional American racial divide, which made some people very uncomfortable, and, well, it was just too much ignorance for even the most confident and sensitive child (which I was not) to sort through and reject.
And so, because of all of the societal forces at play, and because of my own weakness, I never allowed myself to like it. Even as I got older — and even after disco’s subsequent failure to destroy “our” “way of life” — Abba’s exhilarating pop perfection languished in a roped-off part of my brain.
I can still recall the exact moment I finally saw the light. I was grocery shopping one day when I heard a familiar melody, and it was as if I was hearing it for the first time. I stopped and just listened, reeling with how exuberantly sad it was. “Having the time of your life!”
Standing in the aisle, staring up into the overhead speaker (not even stoned!), I had my version of a come-to-Jesus moment. A come-to-Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Anni-Frid moment.