Lay All Your Love on Me

"Lay All Your Love on Me" is an electro-disco song penned by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, with Agnetha Fältskog singing lead. Recording began at Polar Music Studios in Stockholm on 9 September 1980, with the final mix of the song being completed on 10 October 1980. It is known for a descending vocal sound at the end of the verse immediately preceding the refrain. This was achieved by sending the vocal into a harmoniser device, which was set up to produce a slightly lower-pitched version of the vocal. In turn its output was fed back to its input, thereby continually lowering the pitch of the vocal. Andersson and Ulvaeus felt that the chorus of the song sounded like a hymn, so parts of the vocals in the choruses were run through a vocoder, to recreate the sound of a church congregation singing, slightly out of tune.^[6] The song was not originally intended to be released as a single, but was issued in 12-inch form in the UK and a few other countries in 1981. "Lay All Your Love on Me" has since been much covered and is also featured in the Mamma Mia! musical (and its film adaptation), that showcases many of ABBA's hits.

ABBA did not film a promotional video for "Lay All Your Love on Me", and so Epic hastily assembled a video (at a cost of £3,500) by using excerpts from the existing ABBA videos for "Take a Chance on Me", "Summer Night City", "The Name of the Game", "I Have a Dream", "Voulez-Vous" and "The Winner Takes It All". It was never shown on TV because Epic managers thought it "wasn't needed", but was included on the ABBA Gold VHS.^[7]

"Lay All Your Love on Me" was originally not intended as a single release. However, in 1981, a remixed version of the track by Raul A. Rodriguez, otherwise known as C.O.D of Disconet, was released and became a hit in nightclubs,^[8] enough so that it ended up topping the US Billboard Dance Club Songs chart along with "Super Trouper" and "On and On and On".^[9] This success resulted in Polar Music releasing the track as a single in selected territories and only as a 12-inch single, as opposed to the standard 7-inch record.

In the United Kingdom, "Lay All Your Love on Me" debuted at number 19 on the UK singles chart the week of 18 July 1981, and rose to its peak position of number seven the following week; alternatively, it peaked at number five on the NME charts.^[10] Although it was their lowest-charting hit since "I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do", "Lay All Your Love on Me" would become the first ever song to reach the top ten in the UK based solely on 12-inch sales.^[11] It would become the group's seventeenth consecutive top-ten hit, and eighteenth overall. At the time, it was the best selling 12-inch single in history, later surpassed by "Blue Monday" from New Order.^[12] As of September 2021, it is ABBA's 17th-biggest song in the UK, including both pure sales and digital streams.^[13]

Because of the limited release, "Lay All Your Love on Me" charted in only a few regions. In West Germany, the song debuted at number 35 on the German Singles Chart the week of 17 August 1981, and peaked at number 26, becoming the first single since "Voulez-Vous" to miss the top ten in the country. In Ireland, the single peaked at number eight on the Irish Singles Chart, becoming the group's eighteenth consecutive top ten single. In Belgium, it peaked at number 13 on the Ultratop 50.

In 2006, Slant Magazine ranked "Lay All Your Love on Me" No. 60 in their list of the greatest dance songs of all time,^[14] and No. 66 in the updated 2020 list.^[5] In September 2024, Swedish national radio Sveriges Radio P3 ranked it among the world's 300 best songs.^[15]

• Agnetha Fältskog – lead vocals
• Anni-Frid Lyngstad – backing vocals
• Benny Andersson – keyboards, synthesizers, backing vocals
• Björn Ulvaeus – guitar, backing vocals
• Lasse Wellander – guitar
• Rutger Gunnarsson – bass
• Ola Brunkert – drums
• Harry Bisset – piano and vocals