50-Year-Old Songs: Waterloo

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Again, these lists aren’t designed to make you feel old. I do this every year for my birthday (which was last month) to celebrate the timelessness of great music. So if you get an ache in your knee realizing that this song is 50 years old, don’t think of it that way. Think of all the fun you had getting the aching knees from dancing to this back in 1974! Waterloo - Abba See ya tomorrow. Yes, fifty years ago, this quartet went to the Eurovision Song Contest and blew everybody away with this tune. Unlike Napoleon, however, Abba did conquer the world! (Musically, of course.) Everywhere except America. They only toured the U.S. once, way after the fact (1979, when most people were into disco or punk). But that doesn’t really matter. Abba was, and remains, one of the biggest-selling groups in popular music. This song gave Sweden their first victory in the Eurovision Song Contest, and started a career that, although short (they broke up in 1983), was one amazing journey of great pop music. Waterloo Written by Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus, and Stig Anderson Recorded by Abba From Waterloo, 1974 The history book on the shelf: