Agnetha Fältskog – Agnetha Fältskog (RSD)

New, Still Sealed, Released on Record Store Day 2016.

Fältskog had been singing with the local Swedish “dansband” Bengt Engharts in Jönköping for quite a while when the group decided to send a tape of demos to Cupol Records in autumn of 1967. Singer, producer and A & R man Little Gerhard (né Karl-Gerhard Lundqvist) listened to the tape which included Fältskog’s song “Jag var så kär”. Lundqvist was so impressed with the song and Fältskog’s voice that he called her at the car firm where she was working at the time and offered her a recording contract, only as a solo singer, without the band.

Eventually, Fältskog’s first recording session took place on 16 October 1967, at Philips Studio in Stockholm. This recording session produced four songs, which would all end up on her first album: “Jag var så kär” and “Utan dej mitt liv går vidare” (both composed by Agnetha herself) as well as “Följ med mig” and “Slutet gott, allting gott”. “Jag var så kär” and “Följ med mig” were eventually be released as Fältskog’s debut single (CUPOL CS 45-211) in November 1967, the latter up-tempo track being its A-side. But it was Fältskog’s self-penned tear-jerker “Jag var så kär” which became her first entry and also number three on the all-important radio chart Svensktoppen in January 1968. After this success and with selling more than 80,000 copies, the single topped Sweden’s official sales chart at that time, Kvällstoppen. After the following success of the tracks “Utan dej mitt liv går vidare”, “Allting har förändrat sig”, “Den jag väntat på” and “Snövit och de sju dvärgarna”, most of them composed by Fältskog herself, Cupol released her debut album in the spring of 1968, containing all tracks previously issued on these singles as well as a few new recordings.

She wrote “Försonade” and submitted it to Melodifestivalen (Swedish Eurovision heat) for singer Gunnar Wiklund, but it was rejected. The song could also recently be heard in the film Låt den rätte komma in (Let the Right One In) in the scene where Eli plays it on a tape recorder for Oskar.