In 1974, ABBA won the ESC with “Waterloo”. Ulvaeus addressed motivational words to the contestants during the show: “The lives of some acts you saw tonight could change forever”.
Shortly before the Swedish contestant Loreen won this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, a video message from ABBAs Bjorn Ulvaeus recorded. The 78-year-old Swedish musician, songwriter and producer said in his remotely recorded statement: “The lives of some of the acts you saw tonight could change forever”.
While the jury’s votes were still being counted, he looked back on his beginnings with ABBA at the ESC and also motivated this year’s candidates: “Our international success began with Eurovision. So I’d like to say to all the acts who are nervously waiting now, ‘Good luck,’ and who knows where it’s going?” As he spoke, footage of ABBA’s 1974 performance was played. That year the Swedes won the ESC with their song “Waterloo”.
Björn Ulvaeus continued: “When ABBA took the stage, we could not imagine that 50 years later there would be a museum about us and that we would appear as avatars in ABBA Voyage.”
Björn Ulvaeus’ video message about the ESC:
In 2005, “Waterloo” was awarded again – ABBA’s track was named the best winning song in the history of the event. And now, in 2024, Sweden can once again take home the ESC trophy and thus host the song contest next year. Loreen won with the track “Tattoo”. The musician has thus secured a place in the ESC history books – she has won the competition for the second time. In 2012 she went home as the winner, back then with her song “Euphoria”. This makes her the second person in ESC history to do this: only Irish singer Johnny Logan had previously won the song contest twice (1980 and 1987).
Germany was represented by the rock band Lord Of The Lost. The group from Hamburg represented Germany at the ESC in Liverpool with the song “Blood & Glitter”, but again only took last (26th) place. However, Lord Of The Lost took the defeat in a sporty manner: “We are leaving Liverpool with the knowledge that we could not have put more effort, time and love into the undertaking to take part here! And now the big question remains: who will Germany send next year to break the curse?”