According to the book 1000 UK #1 Hits by Jon Kutner &Spencer Leigh, Abba considered submitting two songs for Eurovision, ‘Waterloo’ and ‘Hasta Manana’. In the end they chose the former which ingeniously compared romantic surrender to Napoleon Bonaparte’s defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. They won by six points, beating Italy into second place. Abba’s manager Stig Anderson was so confident they would win that he had placed a bet, even though the bookies odds were 20-1 and he had wondered if people might feel it was too aggressive for Eurovision. ‘Waterloo’ was also recorded in French, German and of course Swedish.
According to the book 1000 UK #1 Hits by Jon Kutner &Spencer Leigh, Abba considered submitting two songs for Eurovision, ‘Waterloo’ and ‘Hasta Manana’. In the end they chose the former which ingeniously compared romantic surrender to Napoleon Bonaparte’s defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. They won by six points, beating Italy into second place. Abba’s manager Stig Anderson was so confident they would win that he had placed a bet, even though the bookies odds were 20-1 and he had wondered if people might feel it was too aggressive for Eurovision. ‘Waterloo’ was also recorded in French, German and of course Swedish.