January, 1978.

Two for the price of one this morning, oh, wait, that’s a different song isn’t it? What I mean is, this is one song, yes, but my head has been morphing between Abba and Erasure since I woke up. Abba were the original though, and they did get in there first this morning, so I’m going with them.

Written by Benny and Björn, the song originated from a rhythm that Björn would sing to himself whilst out running, a ‘tick-a-ch’ style beat that evolved into the line ‘take a chance’ and became the foundation that the rest of the song was written around.

On its release the song was a global hit, reaching the top ten in fourteen countries and making it to number one in Austria, Belgium, Ireland, Mexico and here in the UK, where it spent ten weeks on the chart including three weeks at number one.

In 1992 Erasure released their hugely popular and successful cover version as part of the Abba-esque EP, featuring a somewhat dodgy ragga-style addition, and the song spent a further twelve weeks on the UK chart including another five weeks at number one.