Waterloo (song)

The song “Waterloo” was originally written for Eurovision 1974 , after the band took 3rd place with the song “ Ring Ring ” on the Swedish qualifying round of Melodifestivalen 1973 the previous year. The choice was successful: with this song ABBA won Melodifestivalen 1974 in February and Eurovision in April.

“Waterloo” is performed on behalf of a girl who is ready to surrender to her lover, just as Napoleon had to surrender at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. (By the way, in fact, Napoleon lost the battle, but finally surrendered only four weeks later to the English captain at sea). But unlike Napoleon, the girl is filled with the most joyful feelings: "I feel like I win when I lose."

“Waterloo” is one of the few ABBA songs written using rock and jazz elements that were later rejected in favor of disco motives.

There is one little-known fact associated with this song. Shortly after the victory of ABBA at the Eurovision Song Contest, the Polar label mistakenly put on sale another version of “Waterloo”, characterized by a greater rock orientation, the absence of parts for saxophones and the presence of another “oh yeah” in the refrains. The error was soon fixed, and a more well-known version appeared on the shelves. However, during their tour of Europe and North America in 1979, the group performed “Waterloo” in that variation, and in 2005 the latter was released as part of The Complete Studio Recordings .

Waterloo broke into the first line of the UK charts and stayed there for two weeks, paving the way for nine more ABVA chart-toppers. The song also took first place in the charts of countries such as Ireland , Belgium , Finland , Norway , Switzerland , Germany and South Africa , reached the first three in Sweden (both in Swedish (No.2) and in English (No.3) versions ), Austria, Holland, France and Spain. Unexpectedly (for the Eurovision song-winner) the song took No. 6 in the USA , got into the top 10 of Zimbabwe (then Southern Rhodesia), New Zealand and Australia and just as unexpectedly took only 14th place in Italy. “Waterloo” is the only Eurovision song to reach the top 10 in 15 countries. It is not surprising that on October 22, 2005, as part of the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Eurovision song contest , Waterloo was recognized as the best song in the history of the contest.

• Waterloo (English version)
• “Waterloo” (English alternative version)
• “Waterloo” (French version) - recorded April 18, 1974 in Paris , France .
• Waterloo (French-Swedish version)
• Waterloo (German Version)
• Waterloo (Swedish Version)

The list in the table is far from complete and not exhaustive: the song was released as a single in 54 countries . In fact, being the group’s first major hit, the single survived many editions and was reprinted several times. Regional publications often differed from the Swedish original ^[3] , both in the performance of the cover and in the musical content. So, for example, in Japan and the Netherlands, the disc was released under the old brand Björn, Benny, Agnetha & Frida ^{[4] [5]} - the acronym ABBA has not yet managed to take root in the hearts of the audience. And the French edition carried a compromise version of the name ABBA (Björn, Benny, Agnetha & Frida) ^[6] . The English reissue of 2004 , dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the triumphal single, is also characteristic. In addition to the CD singles that were usual in the 21st century, a limited edition was released as a collector's version in the form of 7-inch vinyl records in the picchet-disk format ^[7] .