End June 2004

Last week Swedish Television showed an old TV-programme from 1985 called "Två och en flygel" (Two [people] and a grand piano). The host of the show Berndt Egerbladh had invited Gunnar Svensson, jazz musician, pianist, composer and performer [3 February 1920-18 August 1995]. Gunnar was the man who wrote the melody to "It's So Nice To Be Rich" for the movie "P&B". On the show they showed a clip from the movie where the song is played and afterwards Berndt asked Gunnar about the song:

BE: Gunnar, you have just become an old age pensioner and now you're suddenly writing this kind of music. How did you ever get that idea?

GS: Well, Hasse [Alfredsson director of the movie] had written the lyrics which was called "It's So Nice To Be Rich" for the movie and he told me: "Now, Gunnar I want you to write a synth music melody for this." So I thought about it for a little while, listened to some of that kind of music and then I sat down and wrote the bass line. After that I came up with a melody which suited the lyrics. I recorded it on a cassette with just my piano playing. Then I told SF (Swedish Filmindustry - producer of the movie) "I might be able to get Agnetha Fältskog to sing this song." Of course noone believed me. But I called Agnetha and we decided to meet at Stikkan's office. Just before she arrived I met Tomas Ledin at the office and asked him to listen to the melody - and *I* sang the lyrics for him. Tomas said "That's a good darn song". I said, "If you think so, can you please tell Agnetha that?" But he said "I don't think that is necessary."

"So when Agnetha arrived I sang it to her and she immediately said: "Great song - I want to record it!". So I left the material, with my arrangement to this very nice man called Rutger Gunnarsson and he finished it with Agnetha. What's funny about this song is that absolutely *no-one* believes that I have written this song."
 

Thanks to Robin Andersson c/o ABBAMAIL and Micke Andersson c/o ABBA Planet