Chiquitita

For the soap opera, see Chiquititas.

"Chiquitita"
Song

"Chiquitita" (which roughly means "little girl" in Spanish) was the first single release from Swedish pop group ABBA's Voulez-Vous album, their sixth for Polar, and their fifth for Epic and Atlantic. Originally, the track "If It Wasn't For The Nights" was going to be the album's lead single, but after "Chiquitita" was completed, these plans were abandoned, and it would remain an album track.

History

Many preliminary versions of "Chiquitita" exist. It had the working titles of "Kålsupare", "Three Wise Guys", "Chiquitita Angelina" and "In The Arms of Rosalita". A revised version, which had a sound that was partly influenced by the song "El Cóndor Pasa" by Simon and Garfunkel, was recorded in December 1978 and released as a single in January 1979.

With the success of the English version, ABBA also recorded "Chiquitita" in Spanish, despite the fact the band had never learned the language. They sang the song simply by phonetics and it gained considerable popularity in countries such as Puerto Rico, Mexico and the Dominican Republic.

Reception

"Chiquitita" proved to be one of ABBA's biggest hits. It was featured in the 1979 UNICEF charity event, the Music for UNICEF Concert, broadcast worldwide from the United Nations General Assembly. As a direct result of this event, ABBA donated half of all royalties from the song to UNICEF. "Chiquitita" hit No.1 in 10 countries worldwide: Belgium, Finland, Switzerland, Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands, South Africa, New Zealand, Mexico and Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia), and reached the Top 5 in ABBA's native Sweden, the UK, West Germany, Norway and Australia, making it the most successful single from the Voulez-Vous album in terms of global charts, and one of the most famous charity songs ever. However, despite this enormous success, "Chiquitita" was less popular in the United States (No.29) and Italy (No.48). But to this day, 50% of the proceeds from the song go to UNICEF in recognition of the International Year Of The Child in 1979. In May 2007, "Chiquitita" had gained UNICEF over 15 million SEK, roughly 2.5 million US Dollars.

Chart positions

Chart (1979)	Position
Belgian Singles Chart	15
Dutch Singles Chart	11
Finnish Singles Chart	1?
Irish Singles Chart	13
Mexican Singles Chart	132
New Zealand Singles Chart	11
South African Singles Chart	11
Spanish Singles Chart	1?
Swiss Singles Chart	12
Zimbabwean Singles Chart	14
Swedish Singles Chart	2
U.K. Singles Chart	2
German Singles Chart	3
Australian Singles Chart	4
Norwegian Singles Chart	4
Austrian Singles Chart	6
Argentinian Singles Chart	7
French Singles Chart	13
Canadian Singles Chart	17
Japanese Singles Chart	19
U.S. Billboard Hot 100	29
Italian Singles Chart	48

Cover versions

• In 1979, Paraguayan/Brazilian camp singer Perla covered "Chiquitita" (as "Pequenina") on her album "Pequenina". Perla already had covered ABBA's "Fernando" on a previous album.
• In 1993 the Croatian group Vatrogasci (Firefighters) made a parody of this song, translating it into Croatian (renaming it "Čičikita") and giving it a turbofolk arrangement.
• A cover by Irish singer Stephen Gately can be found on the 1999 Abbamania compilation.
• The German ABBA Mania album featured a cover of the song by a singer named Lucy.
• German Eurodance group E-Rotic covered the song for their ABBA tribute album Thank You For The Music.
• A dance cover by Electric can be found on the compilation Lay All Your Love On ABBA.
• Sinéad O'Connor covered "Chiquitita" as her contribution to the compilation album Across The Bridge Of Hope - released to support the families of the Omagh bombing victims - in 1999. [1] O'Connor's version omits the second verse of the song.
• On the tribute album ABBAMetal (also released as A Tribute to ABBA), the song is covered by German heavy metal band Spiral Tower.
• The song is covered by Edie on ABBAlicious, an ABBA tribute compilation performed by various U.S. drag queens.
• A cover of the song by Kress can be found on the 2006 chill out music compilation ABBA Chill Out.
• ABBA tribute act Swede Dreams recorded a cover of the song.
• A cover of the song by Finnish a cappella choral ensemble Rajaton can be found on their 2006 ABBA tribute album Rajaton Sings ABBA With Lahti Symphony Orchestra.
• U.S. group Lavender Diamond covered the song as one of the b-sides on their 2007 UK single Open Your Heart.

Live cover performances, appearances in other media, etc.

• The song is performed in the Mamma Mia! musical by the characters of Tanya and Rosie.
• Leona Lewis performed the song on the British TV show The X Factor.
• "Chiquitita" was used as the opening song for the Japanese drama "Strawberry on the Shortcake"
• It was used in episode 2.04 of Queer as Folk at the end.