Rhoticity in live versions of Dancing Queen through the years

Oliver Norred, 26 January 2025

Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Agnetha Fältskog recorded vocals for the studio version of Dancing Queen in 1975.

I was listening to that recording a few weeks ago, and I noticed that in the first chorus, when Lyngstad and Fältskog sing “you are the dancing queen,” the word “are” is pronounced in the non-rhotic, British Received Pronunciation way (“ah”), whereas in the second chorus it’s pronounced the rhotic, American way (“arr”). I dug a rabbit hole to see if I could find a trend.

Studio recording / music video (1974).
First chorus NON-RHOTIC, second chorus RHOTIC.

1977 in Australia.
RHOTIC first chorus NON-RHOTIC second chorus.

1979 in London.
NON-RHOTIC both choruses.

[1979-80 tour of Europe and North America.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2bBTWvmN-8 &ab_channel=AbbaVEVO).
Both choruses are NON-RHOTIC.

Definitely a limited dataset here but it seems like the later shows skew toward non-rhoticity (“British” pronunciation).