ABBA Release New Holiday Song “Little Things”

ABBA has released a more festive single, “Little Things,” off their new album Voyage, the group’s first album release in 40 years.

Teasing the song a few days earlier on social media with the caption, “something special is coming,” the group accompanied the post with a 16-second seasonal visual of a house covered in Christmas lights with a hanging Voyage sign and a child walking across a snow-covered garden.

Singing about the joy Santa brings, stockings full of nice little things, and tiny elves with wings, and backed by a children’s choir, ABBA continues the sweet chime of Little things/ Like your sleepy smile / As the brand new day is dawning/ It’s a lovely Christmas morning.

“Benny [Andersson] played the melody to me and we both knew it was a Christmas song,” says ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus. “There was never any doubt about it. It’s so calm and sweet and I imagined an early Christmas morning rather than a Christmas night.”

A departure from the initial seasonal setting teased, in the video, ABBA inspires a classroom of kids School of Rock-style, with all of the kids dancing, singing, and playing instruments to the holiday tune, creating their very own ABBA Voyage concert.

The single is the latest from ABBA’s ninth album Voyage, and the first since the foursome last recorded as a unit for The Visitors in 1981.

Reaching No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and No. 1 on the U.K. charts, Voyage is the highest charting album by the group. ABBA’s previous big hit was the 1978 release ABBA: The Album, which reached No. 14, along with the single “Take a Chance on Me,” which peaked at No. 3. on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.

Proceeds from “Little Things” will be donated to UNICEFs Global Child Protection Fund to help empower young girls and protect them against violence.

“We think it is impossible to eradicate poverty without the empowerment of women,” said the group, Ulvaeus, Anderssson, Agnetha Fältskog, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, in a statement. “That is why we support UNICEF in protecting girls from sexual violence and empowering them through the Global Child Protection Fund. We have done so for many years with our song ‘Chiquitita’ and now we have decided to give UNICEF a Christmas gift in the form of a second song.”

Photo: ABBA / Universal Music Group