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The winner takes it all
Spencer Barnett chats to Björn Ulvaeus about success, songwriting and life after Abba
Get your flags out and invite your friends over, it’s that time of year again. From 12-16 May, Moscow has the dubious honour (and considerable expense) of hosting the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest, after Dima Bilan won last year’s contest in Belgrade.
Most winners end up fading into obscurity, including Belgium’s only winning song, 1986’s ‘J’aime la vie’, which is perhaps better remembered for being performed by the contest’s youngest winner, 13-year-old Sandra Kim. But one entry’s unprecedented success has eclipsed its winning status – ‘Waterloo’, performed in 1974 by a then unknown group called Abba.
We caught up with one quarter of the group, Björn Ulvaeus, who spoke exclusively to b.there! about what Eurovision means to him.
“Before Abba, I was performing in a folk group, Benny [Andersson] was in a pop group and the two girls [Agnetha Fältskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad] had their separate solo careers,” he says. “Then we did a kind of cabaret show, the four of us together, and it was the pits – absolutely terrible. remember one night in Gothenburg we were performing in a restaurant to just seven people.”
That night must have seemed a distant memory by the time they won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974. But, as Ulvaeus explains, it wasn’t the group’s first crack at the competition.
“The year before, we entered with a song called ‘Ring Ring’ but didn’t win the Swedish competition. I think it was for the best because the year after [the competition] was in Brighton, which meant we could do Top of the Pops on the BBC a couple of days after and promote ourselves in London. Then everything took off. I don’t even know where Eurovision was the year before, but I’m sure the impact was bigger because we won in England.
“That night on 6 April was incredible, probably the biggest night of my life. Everything changed. The world was open to us. We could do whatever we wanted. We felt such freedom, artistically and in every other way. I don’t think Abba would have been what we became had we not won that night.”
But when he talks about the recent crop of Eurovision entries, he seems a little disappointed. “I think it’s a terrific TV programme,” he says. “Even though I don’t like most of the tunes, I do enjoy it. I just wish the quality of the tunes was higher, but it’s difficult to find people to write for Eurovision these days.”
But when asked if, like Johnny Logan – who steered Ireland towards three of the country’s record-breaking seven victories (as a performer in 1980, as a writer and performer in 1987 and as a writer in 1992) – he might ever be tempted to enter again, he’s emphatic. “No. No way,” he insists. “We used it as a vehicle, because we were Swedes.
If we had been a British group we wouldn’t have entered. There are other options for British groups. It’s so difficult to explain afterwards that you are actually something more than a one-hit wonder.
“I’m afraid that, although it’s a great competition, being in Eurovision as an artist can lose you credibility easily and it’s difficult to build it up afterwards. We lived through that.” Not only did they live through it, they silenced any critics with a string of No. 1 hits around the world. But by 1982 things had changed and Abba decided to split.
“We didn’t have as much fun in the studio any more. From 1977 to 1980 we had such fun, such ambition and self-confidence, and all of a sudden that seemed not to be the case. We had discussed this years before it happened. We said if it did happen, let’s just take a break. We didn’t want to do what others have done: just going on and on and on, having maybe one hit every two years. That’s why we broke up.”
Ulvaeus also dismisses the persistent rumours that the band may reform for a one-off concert or tour. “It’s absolutely not true,” he says emphatically.
Abba may have no plans to regroup, but the legacy of their music lives on, most notably in the hit musical Mamma Mia!, which Ulvaeus co-created and co-produced, and the film of the same name, last year’s runaway box office success starring Meryl Streep. Did he ever envisage it being so huge?
“I had my worries,” he says. “I didn’t expect it to be such a big hit. I didn’t know until the first preview that people would enjoy themselves so immensely and laugh so much. But then I thought: ‘Yeah, this is something big.’
“Mamma Mia! opened on 6 April 1999, exactly 25 years after we’d won in Brighton. It’s pure coincidence. No one believed this but it’s actually true. I thought it was a very good omen.”
Eurovision may have given us one of the most popular groups ever, but in recent years it has become a melee of musical mediocrity. However, this year the national broadcasting organisation of southern Belgium, RTBF, has chosen Elvis impersonator Patrick Ouchene to represent the country.
The 43-year-old French rockabilly singer (only the composer needs to come from the competing country, as in the case of the young Celine Dion, who won for Switzerland in 1988 despite being French-Canadian) will perform a catchy number aptly entitled ‘Copycat’. He’ll sing in the first semi-final on 12 May, and hopefully qualify for the grand final on 16 May.
You never know, this may be the year to put a few euros on a Belgian victory.
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