News - ABBA victory with Waterloo exactly 30 years ago | Eurovision Song Contest News - Germany 2011 

Today it's exactly 30 years ago that the Swedish band ABBA won the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest in Brighton with Waterloo.

ABBA is by far the most succesful winner of the Eurovision Song Contest ever, selling millions of records all over the world. Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Anni-Frid had number one hits with Mamma Mia, Thank you for the music, Dancing queen and many other songs in different countries. The Eurovision Song Contest is considered as the kick-off of ABBA's 10-year career. In 1973, ABBA tried to qualify for the Eurovision Song Contest with Ring ring in the Swedish national final, but they did not succeed. The song gave the group a big hit in Sweden. The only problem was the long group name, which consisted of their full first names. A competition was held in a Swedish newspaper, but it didn’t brought any usable results. It seems that it was Stig Anderson, the group’s manager, who found the best solution. He combined the first letters in each of the member’s first names and came up with ABBA. Stig Anderson also wrote the lyrics for Waterloo. In the first phase of the production, the song was titled Honey pie, but when Stig read a quote about Napoleon's Waterloo defeat, he decided to use thát word! A week before Christmas 1973, the song was recorded at the Metronome Studio in Stockholm. You can find a lot more information about ABBA on abbasite.com!