Abba 1974 in Stockholm.
Photo: AFP via Getty Images, OLLE LINDEBORG. All rights reserved.
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“Every ABBA fan knows what’s special about this week,” the Swedish pop group introduces its current Facebook post. The allusion refers to the date of April 6th and thus to the day on which the band sang the Swedes first place in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974. And what better way to celebrate this day 48 years later than with a remastered lyric video of the winning song.
YouTube premiere on Friday
On Wednesday (April 6th) at 3 p.m. the music video for “Waterloo” including the lyrics to the song will go online. ABBA have again set up a YouTube premiere for this, which allows fans to chat with each other about the new video and of course to comment live on its release on Friday.
A year full of Abba Lyric videos
The clip thus joins a large-scale lyric music video series: In the course of the year, lyric videos in a new design are to be uploaded for all tracks of the greatest hits album “ABBA Gold”. The video for “Chiquitita” kicked off last March, transporting viewers back to 1979 with its nostalgic scenes from the original music video.
“Too rocky” for the Grand Prix?
It was not a matter of course for ABBA that their hit “Waterloo” was so successful at the Grand Prix almost 50 years ago. On the contrary, the four had even assumed that the song was not suitable for the format. Agnetha Fältskog described the title as “too rocky”. However, the happy, rocking melody did not come about by chance. After the band lost out in the pre-selection for the Eurovision Song Contest in 1973 with the song “Ring Ring”, they wanted to go one step further the following year.
The “Best Song” of the Eurovision Song Contest
The efforts were crowned with success. Even in 2005, the winning song seemed to be remembered: a vote during the 50th Eurovision Song Contest declared “Waterloo” the “Best song in the history of the competition”. And all this, although Björn Ulvaeus later complained that the stage costume was “so tight”. [gewesen]that I couldn’t sit down with it. It was terrible.”
The outfits will also be featured again in the new lyric video. This is suggested by a sneak peak clip that the band already published in the announcement post.
Recently, things have been anything but quiet about the Swedes: ABBA recently dedicated the song “Ode to Freedom” from their current album “Voyage” to the Ukraine. Member Benny Anderson performed the title together with a Ukrainian string ensemble in Stockholm. In addition, an ABBA boxset will be released in May, which is said to contain all the albums of the band. The band’s Avatar virtual tour is also set to begin in London later this month. All four members of the band want to be present at the opening.
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