ABBA - Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) (Long Version) (US 7'' Promo) (1979)

ABBA - Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) (Long Version) (US 7'' Promo) (1979)

"Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)", (working title "Been and Gone and Done It"), is a song by Swedish band ABBA. It was recorded and released in 1979. It appears on ABBA's Greatest Hits Vol. 2. "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)" was written and composed by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, with the lead vocal sung by Agnetha Fältskog. Agnetha, as the narrator, weaves the image of a lonely young woman who longs for a romantic relationship and views her loneliness as a forbidding darkness of night, even drawing parallels to how the happy endings of movie stars are so different from her own existence. The song was recorded at Polar Music Studios in Stockholm, Sweden, in August 1979, and was ready for release in October of that year, in conjunction with the group's tour of North America and Europe. The single version of this song, which was released in its full length of 4:48 everywhere else in the world, was released in the United States and Canada in an edited format, being just 3:39 in length. This was done by removing the first half of the opening instrumental, the first four of the eight bars of the instrumental bridge between the second and final chorus, and fading the song out early. It is believed the edit was done by Atlantic, ABBA's North American record label, and not Polar, hence the reason why it was available only in the USA and Canada. This single version has never appeared on any commercial CD issued by Polar/Universal to date, and along with the US radio edit of Chiquitita, it marked the only time Atlantic ever commercially released an edited version of an ABBA single while they had the North American rights to release ABBA recordings. The single was never released by Polar Music in the group's native Sweden, instead being featured on the "Greatest Hits Vol. 2" album, which did get a Swedish release. While Polar released the single in neighbouring Norway, Denmark, and Finland, copies of these versions were not made available in the Swedish record stores, who thus arranged to import copies of the United Kingdom version on Epic Records. Sales of these imports were sufficient for the single to reach no. 16 on the sales chart in Sweden. "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)" was another highly successful song for ABBA. It hit no. 1 in Belgium, Finland, France, Ireland, and Switzerland, while reaching the Top 3 in Austria, Germany, Great Britain, The Netherlands, and Norway. It also proved to be ABBA's most successful song in Japan, hitting no. 17. SIDE A: Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) (Long Version) 4:48 SIDE B: Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) (Short Version) 3:39 VINYL GRADE: Vinyl: Near Mint Sleeve: Near Mint (company) RELEASE INFORMATION: Label: Atlantic ‎– 3652 Format: Vinyl, 7", 45 RPM, Single, Promo Country: US Released: 1979 Genre: Pop Style: Disco CREDITS: Engineer – Michael B. Tretow Mastered By – GP* Producer, Arranged By, Written-By – Benny Andersson & Björn Ulvaeus* NOTES: "PROMOTIONAL COPY NOT FOR SALE" From the Atlantic LP "Greatest Hits Vol. 2"