Prior to the era of crud personified by ABBA, we went through a long period of music that was actually about something -- political and metaphysical ideas. Apparently the questions being asked got too uncomfortable for a lot of people ("Could the government actually be working against our interest?"), leading to Saturday Night Fever, this, and an even longer period of nothink that we may (or may not) just be emerging from now.

So why do we love it so much? What you mean we, white woman? ABBA was a cultural tragedy, and some pretty awful music as well. The best American music (and all rock is influenced by American music) has always been played by some variation of guitar, piano, sax, bass and drums, in live performance. ABBA's about as far away from that as it's possible to get. Bubblegum pop for small children, given, but children ought to grow up sometime.

I've been playing this all summer, for some strange reason. It's by Gene McDaniels, from 1969, most memorably performed by Les McCann and Eddie Harris. You want Waterloo? I got your Waterloo....

1. Love the lie and lie the love

Hangin' on, with a push and shove

Possession is the motivation

that is hangin' up the God-damn nation

Looks like we always end up in a rut (everybody now!)

Tryin' to make it real — compared to what?

2. Slaughterhouse is killin' hogs

Twisted children killin' frogs

Poor dumb rednecks rollin' logs

Tired old ladies kissin' dogs

Hate the human, love that stinking mutt (I can't stand it!)

Try to make it real — compared to what?

3. The President, he's got his war

Folks don't know just what it's for

Nobody gives us rhyme or reason

Have one doubt, they call it treason

We're chicken-feathers, all without one gut (God damn it!)

Tryin' to make it real — compared to what? (Sock it to me, now)

4. Church on Sunday, sleep and nod

Tryin' to duck the wrath of God

Preacher's fillin' us with fright

Tryin' to tell us what he thinks is right

He really got to be some kind of nut (I can't use it!)

Tryin' to make it real — compared to what?

5. Where's that bee and where's that honey?

Where's my God and where's my money

Unreal values, crass distortion

Unwed mothers need abortion

Kind of brings to mind ol' young King Tut (He did it now)

Tried to make it real — compared to what?!

In researching the lyrics to the song, I found a listing for a grainy video of the original performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival. I had no idea it existed. Lyrics aside, Les McCann's piano is irresistible, even for Abba fans.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OawoYrv9OUY

, after reading these letters. Abba is for little white princesses, and anyone, of any age, sex or gender, who wants to recapture (or just capture) that feeling.

They would never have published that terrible antisummer snotwhine that is Salon's lead article today, and was supposedly written by a New Yorker.

Made fun of it, yes.

Really? Justin Timberlake is finally a free man?

Your advice is just too good, far too sensible and soul-enhancing. And wasted, because this person is too intent on self-pity and, by her own account, too self-limiting in her choices ever to do herself any good. A new Fran Leibowitz. Like we needed another, or even one, of those.

I thought the real hero of the piece was the tiny cancer survivor dancing on the table while our heroine complained, again, of food poisoning. Apparently we're supposed to identify with her, and it's amazing, from these letters, how many do. And Salon bought it all, thinking it was humor.

As to why anyone who might possibly not like the piece would read (or skim) it, it's the slow motion car crash effect. Sometimes you just can't look away. You have to know how bad it can get.

And if it's Salon, it can get pretty bad.

as one who's fought the free speech wars for years, almost all the fanatic anti-nipple crusaders I've known have been women. Something about the sanctity of the breast as a vehicle for motherly nourishment and those evil men who would defile the image.

Or simply have an idea of their own.

I read parts of this article to my wife. At the end of three paragraphs she had her hands over her ears and was making "la-la-la" noises, begging me to stop.

She was the reason we resubscribed. Now she no longer wants anything to do with it.

Salon has suffered an approximately two-thirds subscription drop since the ascension of Joan Walsh. It's what's not here anymore, but it's also what's replaced it.

Here we go again. The worst article since "I Hate Summer," which was the worst since "Abba means God," which was the worst since Bacon Week.

What was that, two weeks ago?

Woman to police (body protruding from behind sofa):

"He misspoke, I misheard and it went downhill from there."

"Killing in response to words or conduct which caused the defendant to have a justifiable sense of being seriously wronged"? I wish you were kidding me.

but I decided to be nice. But I hadn't read jacoby's Reparations letter yet.

Well, there you go.

She's not really kidding, is she?

O'Hehir's personal life is of no interest to me.

Judging from the response to this "courageous" article, it seems to parallel Salon's political stance of the past year. We like Hillary/like to talk interminably in a closed space with a few dozen helpless people, so why doesn't everyone? We'll just damn those who disagree and win in the long run. What's not to like? You know we're right. Why are you leaving?

I know a lot of Democrats who have no degree at all.

My (Great) Uncle Charlie had to walk uphill both ways to school and back, and he's been voting Democratic since William Jennings Bryan.

Go figure.