Abba's recording of their first new music since 1982 brought back "bonds that are beyond anything else", band member Bjorn Ulvaeus has said.
Bjorn, who will read a CBeebies Bedtime Story on Friday 7 February, said the reunion of the Swedish quartet ahead of new material being released later this year, was "fabulous".
"We felt that when we were in the studio together, for the first time since 1982鈥t was going back in time in 30 seconds," he said.
He also hinted the new material may not be the last, saying of his songwriting with Benny Andersson, "I think there are still things in our heads now that we haven鈥檛 used yet, that we haven鈥檛 found a place for yet."
The new music will form part of a virtual reality 'Abba Avatar' tour, where the band will appear as holograms.
鈥淚t鈥檚 wonderful to be sitting together with other people and bouncing ideas off each other and hearing the sound of other voices blending with yours. It鈥檚 exhilarating. It is the best," Bjorn Ulvaeus said.
Abba's members Agnetha F盲ltskog, Bj枚rn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad formed the group in Stockholm in 1972 and had their big break when they won the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest.
They went on to become one of the best selling music acts of all time.
The band split in 1982 and have never reformed.
Going solo was 'boring'
Speaking of his songwriting partnership with Benny Andersson, Bjorn said, "鈥he two of us together are very good together. And we鈥檝e had so many kicks along the way."
"You know the minute you realise that you have The Winner Takes It All or Dancing Queen or Waterloo, you don鈥檛 know that you have a big hit, that鈥檚 not it.
"But you know that you have done something really, really well, and that鈥檚 such a kick.
"That鈥檚 what I treasure the most, our friendship and our song writing together and the two ladies also.
"We were, I think, quite amazing together during that creative outburst in the seventies when we had eight, nine years together.
"I鈥檝e always been in groups. I tried to go solo at one point but I thought that was so boring, much better to be in a group, I think."
'Overnight everything changed'
The band shot to fame after winning the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest, although they were undecided about which song to pick Bjorn recalled, 鈥淲e had two songs to choose from for the Eurovision song contest鈥ut Waterloo was much more fun to perform so we took that one.鈥
鈥淚 though we鈥檇 end up pretty good like fourth, fifth or sixth or something like that.
"But we had kind of outrageous costumes and we played a song that was not a Eurovision song.
"So I thought it could be a launchpad for our career anyway because we鈥檇 be noticed but I never dreamed it would win.
"That was amazing, overnight everything changed."
Bjorn said that even almost forty years on from their split he is still approached by people who love Abba's music, "Everyday someone comes up to me saying how much the music that I鈥檝e co-written has meant to people in their lives.
"And I can see that they're actually, you know, honest and it鈥檚 real, and that鈥檚 amazing, it's so humbling."
'You cannot sing'
Abba songs were "were all written in the very same way," he said.
"The two of us in a room banging away, suddenly something coming up.
"Some of the songs there must have been years between them but we kept those little sections, like a verse, like a bit of a verse, the bridge, a bit of a chorus and we played them again and again because they had something.
"We never wrote anything down, we never recorded anything; it was all in our heads.
"We reckoned that if it stays for a year then it is probably good enough.
"Sometimes we just saved that little snippet for later.
"In a month's time or week's time something new would come up and then one of us would say 'Hang on! Do you remember that little snippet of that bridge, from this one?'
"Then one of us would play that, 'That fits perfectly with the one we did today,' that's how song writing worked for us."
Closer to home his grandchildren keep his feet on the ground, "Someone has told me that I鈥檓 not a good singer," he laughed.
"It was one of my grandchildren, I was singing in the kitchen and she suddenly said, 'You鈥檙e a good grandpa but you cannot sing.'"
Bjorn Ulvaeus reads the CBeebies Bedtime Story on Friday 7 February.
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