Abba - Waterloo (Spain)

Abba visited Madrid from May 20-22 1974 to perform four songs on the tv show Senoras y Senores. These were Ring Ring, Honey Honey, Hasta Manana and Waterloo. This was the final stop of their promotional tour following their Eurovision victory with Waterloo at Brighton on April 6. This promotional tour was quite hectic and featured appearances and performances in London (Apr 10 & 30), Hamburg (Apr 11, 25 & May 13), Paris (Apr 17-19, May 18), Holland (Apr 24 & 29), Frankfurt (May 14), Saarbrucken (May 16), Brussels (May 17) and Madrid (May 20-22).
The group were forced to cancel their intended summer tour of the Swedish Parks for their own sanity. Stig sent an apologetic letter to the directors of the 30 parks where they had planned to perform. The parks and press reacted angrily with headlines like "terribly immoral" and "Abba no longer need Sweden". The Copenhagen park director wrote "I have been ridiculed by a gang of Swedish amateurs who are certain to be forgotten a year from now. Every future letter from you will be returned unopened." Nevertheless Stig was able to point out "no contract had been signed with the parks, it was only a verbal agreement". The cancelled summer tour was put back to the next year to placate the parks and their Swedish fans.
It was a good descision to cancel the Summer Parks tour, as the group were starting to feel the strain of promoting their Eurovision success by Madrid. This was their first visit to Spain. The four songs were staged with annoying special effects and accompanied by ballet dancers. They were broadcast in black and white, despite colour being available for some years. The group did not have the same view about the show as the chairman of Spanish tv Valerio Lazarov. When they started filming, Abba were asked to do a video style clip instead of simply doing a playback performance to their songs. They had words with Mr. Lazarov about this difference of opinion. The compromise produced this wierdest performance Abba have ever done!
Abba were also supposed to record Waterloo in Spanish during this visit, as their Spanish record label Carnaby were keen to release a Spanish version of the song. However the scheduled interviews and filming for the tv show took longer than expected. There wasn't enough time left to record the song in the Madrid studios, so the recording session was cancelled. Björn promised they would never visit Spain again to perform in any show if Mr Lazarov was in charge of the national television. They did not return to Spain until 1979.
Waterloo was already no.1 in Spain when Abba visited, and remained in the charts for 15 weeks. It reached no.1 in nine countries including the UK, and reached the top 5 in eight more countries. It was recorded at Metronome Studio, Stockholm on December 17 1973.

Written by: Benny Andersson, Stig Anderson & Björn Ulvaeus
Lead vocal: Agnetha & Frida

My, my, at Waterloo Napolean did surrender
Oh yeah, and I have met my destiny
In quite a similar way,
The history book on the shelf,
Is always repeating itself

Waterloo - I was defeated, you won the war
Waterloo - Promise to love you for ever more,
Waterloo - Couldn't escape if I wanted to,
Waterloo - Knowing my fate is to be with you,
Wa-wa-wa-wa Waterloo - Finally facing my Waterloo

My, my, I tried to hold you back but you were stronger
Oh yeah, and now it seems
My only chance is giving up the fight,
And how could I ever refuse,
I feel like I win when I lose

Waterloo - I was defeated, you won the war
Waterloo - Promise to love you for ever more,
Waterloo - Couldn't escape if I wanted to,
Waterloo - Knowing my fate is to be with you,
Wa-wa-wa-wa Waterloo - Finally facing my Waterloo

So how could I ever refuse,
I feel like I win when I lose,
Waterloo - Couldn't escape if I wanted to,
Waterloo - Knowing my fate is to be with you,
Wa-wa-wa-wa Waterloo - Finally facing my Waterloo,
Waterloo - Knowing my fate is to be with you,
Wa-wa-wa-wa Waterloo - Finally facing my Waterloo

Category:

Music

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• Abba

[mjreid1972]

Yes what a great piece of ABBA history this was. I love you guys in Europe for finding this footage to share. And most of time it is still really watchable, or better like it was just yesterday it was screened. I might live in Australia where it is widely known they were mega popular for a while. But we could never match the continent across many countried for shear wealth of recorded footage like this. Although I thought this was the US mix single release of this song, as stated in Blue box set

[abbafanglosuk]

Many thanks for your appreciation! This was the wierdest performance they did!

[caquerio]

Hi John. This is the first time I see this performance; it's from spanish tv, but I was 2 years old in 1974. Very funny, I like it. Well, for the request, this is my address: C/ Sequia Comtal, 2 08018 Barcelona (Spain).

That's extremely kind of you. God bless you, John. THANK YOU!

[abbafanglosuk]

Hi Francisco, thanks for address. Have you got your full name also, to put on the envelope? Yeah its a wierd performance alright, with those odd props and dancers! You might have seen it originally without knowing!

[mcmlxvi]

I did, I was 8. But here's and interesting piece of trivia for you ABBA lovers. When Sony released they're new invention called Betamax (that's right BETAMAX!!) back in 1975, they included a cassette with the appliance, that cassette contained various music clips, I remember Elton John playing a piano with a pair of HUGE heart shaped glasses (very sparky) and ABBA singing (don't remember what) in front of a blue background all dressed in white. Now THIS clip was included in Spain in full color.

[abbafanglosuk]

I would guess at Mama Mia being on that cassette! The girls wear white outfits in their official 1975 video of Mama Mia!

[Kunniatonpaskiainen]

this was goo-ood.Nothing much,but something else.

[janachocolita]

now bjorn!!

[janachocolita]

omg! frida is standing on the piano

[abbafanglosuk]

Thanks very much Ecy, very nice of you - from John in England!