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"Waterloo"
Single by ABBA from the album Waterloo
B-side	Watch Out
Released	March 12, 1974
Format	7" single
Genre	Glam rock
Length	2:42
Label	Polar Music
Writer	Benny Andersson, Stig Anderson, Björn Ulvaeus
Producer	Michael Tretow
ABBA singles chronology
"Waterloo (Swedish version)" (1974) "Waterloo" (1974) "Honey, Honey" (1974)
Audio sample
Info (help·info)

"Waterloo", first called "Honey-Pie", was the first single from Swedish pop group ABBA's second album Waterloo, their first for Epic & Atlantic. This was the song that won ABBA the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest and began their path to worldwide fame. The single was coupled with "Watch Out" as the B-side.

"Waterloo" was originally written as a song for the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest, after the group finished third with "Ring Ring" in the previous year's national heats. Since it focused on lead vocalists Agnetha Fältskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson chose it in place of another of their songs, "Hasta Mañana". "Waterloo" is about a girl who is about to surrender to romance, as Napoleon had to surrender at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

The song proved to be a good choice. It sailed through the Swedish heats (in Swedish) in February 1974 and won that year's Eurovision Song contest final on April 6 by six points.

"Waterloo" was one of ABBA's few songs to be written with simultaneous rock music and jazz beats, something later discarded in favor of more disco-esque rhythms.

Though it isn't well-known, Polar accidentally released a different version of "Waterloo" shortly after ABBA's Eurovision win before pulling it off the shelves and replacing it with the more famous version. The alternate version had a rockier sound, omitting the saxophones, plus an addition "oh yeah" in the verses. The alternate version has since popped up in some ABBA box sets.

The "Waterloo" single introduced the world to the phenomenon that was to become ABBA. The song shot to No.1 in the UK and stayed there for two weeks, becoming the first of the band's nine UK chart-toppers. It also hit No.1 in Ireland, Belgium, Finland, Norway, Switzerland, West Germany and South Africa, while reaching the Top 3 in ABBA's native Sweden (in both its English (No.2) and Swedish (No.3) formats), Austria, the Netherlands, France and Spain. Amazingly, for a Eurovision winning song, "Waterloo" also reached the Top 10 in Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia), New Zealand, Australia and the United States. Yet, despite all this success, "Waterloo" only reached No.14 in Italy, possibly because they would have won ESC that year if it was not for this song. "Waterloo" is the only song that has competed in Eurovision to reach the Top 10 in 15 countries.

The Waterloo album performed similarly well in Europe, although in the U.S., it failed to match the success of the single. Though it would be another eighteen months before the group repeated their success, "Waterloo" introduced the world to a fresh-faced and vibrant group of individuals who were determined not to be Eurovision one-hit wonders.

ABBA had originally cited Wood & the Wizzard song "See My Baby Jive" as influences & in the wake of their Eurovision victory, were quoted as saying that it would not surprise them if artists such as Wizzard would consider entering the Eurovision contest in future.

In 1994, "Waterloo" - together with several other ABBA hits - was included in the soundtrack of the film Muriel's Wedding. It was re-released in 2004 (with the same B-side), to celebrate its thirtieth anniversary, reaching No.20 on the UK charts.

On October 22, 2005, during the fiftieth celebration of the Eurovision Song Contest, "Waterloo" was chosen as the best song in the competition's history.

Contrary to what the song claims, Napoleon did not surrender at Waterloo; he surrendered at Rochefort on the French Atlantic coast four weeks later.

Australia (7")

1. Waterloo
2. Watch Out
3. Ring Ring
4. Rock'n Roll Band

• In 1986, a cover version of the song was recorded and released by Doctor and the Medics, with special guest Roy Wood on saxophone and backing vocals, reached No. 45 on the UK chart.
• The Swedish heavy metal band Black Ingvars covered "Waterloo" in Swedish on their 1998 album Schlager Metal.
• A heavy metal cover of the song by Nation can be found on the compilation ABBAMetal.
• In 1998, UK girl group Bananarama reunited to record "Waterloo" for the Eurovision parody A Song For Eurotrash on Channel 4. Their music video featured the girls waking up from a hang-over, dancing around in wedding dresses at an altar (with male back-up dancers in military uniform), and getting into a food fight at a wedding reception.
• Dance versions of the song have been recorded by Abbacadabra (released through Almighty Records), Tiny T on the Lay All Your Love On ABBA tribute album, German Eurodance group E-Rotic on their Thank You For The Music album & the Golden Queens.
• U.S. indie music artist Pamela McNeil covered the song on her album Tribute To ABBA.
• On the British ABBAMania 2 album released in 2004, the song is performed by British TV actors Michelle Hardwick, Vickie Gates, and Will Mellor.
• An electronica version by Motor Industries can be found on the album The Electronic Tribute To ABBA. Another electronica version was recorded by an artist called Roymond.
• The New Zealand compilation ABBAsalutely includes a version by Cloth.
• German pop group Banaroo covered the song for the German ABBA Mania compilation, which coincided with a TV special.
• The song is featured in the encore of the musical Mamma Mia!.
• The song made an appearance on The Simpsons in the episode "Mother Simpson".
• On December 12, 2006, the song was played by NASA during STS-116 as the wake up song for Christer Fuglesang, also from Sweden, in honor of him becoming the first Nordic astronaut.
• Bernd Stromberg, the main character of the German TV series Stromberg sang this song in the 9th episode of the 2nd season ("Die Kündigung")