When Abba won Eurovision in 1974, the UK jury gave them nul points – an unpromising start to our enduring affair with the Swedish foursome. But why do we still love them 50 years on?
WHEN ABBA CAME to Britain 50 years ago this month, it’s fair to say that, initially, Britain wasn’t overly impressed. Performing Waterloo at the Brighton Dome at the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest as if their career depended on it, the Swedish band gave it their all for the audience, jurors and BBC cameras.
The foursome were dressed in high 70s fashion: stack-heeled boots, frills, all things glam (and that was just the boys). Agnetha Faltskog and Anni-Frid “Frida” Lyngstad, in perfect, lightly choreographed harmony, were singing arguably the catchiest number from their second album of the same name. And the orchestra was conducted by a man (band associate Sven-Olof Walldoff ) dressed as Napoleon.
The previous year Abba had been beaten in the heats to represent Sweden, despite roping in Neil Sedaka to help with English lyrics for their song Ring Ring. So they were determined to make a splash in Brighton. According to lyricist Bjorn Ulvaeus, if Abba were “accepted in Britain”, that meant they were a real pop group.
The reaction inside the Dome on 6 April 1974 was encouraging. But in the UK jurors’ room, the response was muted – a situation probably not helped by the panel being “secluded” 50 miles away in Broadcasting House in London, watching on a screen with no audio of commentator David Vine or presenter Katie Boyle.
Basil Herwald, one of the ten-strong British judging contingent that year, was a 20-year-old Cambridge law student and Eurovision fan who’d answered a newspaper ad looking for jurors (five under 21, five over 21). “There were two things,” he says now. “Some of us thought they looked a bit stupid. Also, they were due to sing the song in Swedish, which is what they’d done at rehearsal. I don’t think that affected us, but during the voting process, I don’t remember Sweden coming up in our discussions.” The result for Abba: nul points from Royaume-Uni.
And when they won? “We were nonplussed!” laughs Herwald, now a 70-year-old retired lawyer living in Cumbria. “Not one of us had thought about them. With hindsight, of course, they deserved it. But at the time I’m afraid we weren’t concentrating on Abba. Most of us were surprised that Italy didn’t win.”
When Abba Came to Britain
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BUT THEY DIDN’T, Abba did, and the rest, as they say, is hysteria. Brighton 74 was the launch-point for the greatest pop career since the Beatles. It also kickstarted a global phenomenon that, half a century on – courtesy of the hit jukebox musical Mamma Mia!, two multi-million dollar bloc
