Ring Ring vs Waterloo (songs)

What kind of headphones?

I think I've always preferred Ring Ring to Waterloo. Difficult to talk about 'better' when it comes to music; so it's down to personal taste, as per usual. I'll just say that I prefer Ring Ring, musically: I like it's melody more than that of Waterloo, and I like RR's overall 'feel'. And when it comes to pop songs, do a lot of listeners care all that much about the lyrics if they like the vibe of the song, I wonder. If I like the music side of things, I'm often not all that bothered about the lyrics.

Of course. where a song ends up in a song contest, or qualifying contest, often says more about the preferences of the voting panel rather than any intrinsic qualities a song might be deemed to have. Maybe some - and I'm one of them - think "SI" sung by Gigliola Cinquetti, which came 2nd, was a 'better' song than Waterloo, and deserved to win the ESC of 1974. But of course, for obvious reasons, I'm glad ABBA won.

They're both great songs IMO - Ring Ring is when the 'ABBA Sound' first started to form and Waterloo was what really showed what they were all about.

If Ring Ring had gone through to Eurovision 1973, I could see it as doing decently well but probably not winning the whole thing like Waterloo did.

I like many of ABBA's pre Arrival recordings. Often there is a bouncy happiness that for me brings back nostalgia of summers long ago. Musically I prefer RR to WL mainly for the instrumentation - as Joseph said with good headphone I can hear a lot of detail that makes it for me a more interesting track. That said Waterloo has great lyrics and a banging bassline.

I'll second everyone's comments about Dum Dum Diddle. Its a great, catchy tune and one of 3 or 4 from the band that in an idle moment I start whistling.

It’s always been Ring Ring for me, it’s already been said but over familiarity has dented my like for Waterloo,
Waterloo it’s one of those go to tracks that the media play along with Dancing Queen, for any Abba track, DQ..which ironically I can’t get enough of, strange how some tracks just never tire..
Ring Ring probably would not have won in 1973 even if it had made it to the final as Vicky Leandros won with the wonderful Apres Toi ( come what may ) a number 2 hit here in the UK, Ring Ring probably too Eurovision....
I even-like the Abba/ Blondie mash up Ring Ring/ Hangin on the Telephone...

RR deserved to be a bigger hit, realistically top 20, but the usual back lash of Eurovision kicked in, and if we really think about it , it’s amazing that Abba did come back with such great hits after 3 comparative flops, it would’ve been easy to right them off here in the UK.. thank God for SOS and perseverance....

^^^^ Your so right re 1973 ESC... I was getting carried away, that said it was still a good song that won not wanting to turn this into a Eurovision thread..lol ...even 2nd by Spain with Eres Tu which I think was a big hit in USA and 3rd was the UKs Cliff Richard and Power To All Our Friends, extremely close just a few points in it...I think Abba would have struggled to have made top 5 and then we would’ve had a different story to tell.....

I think October 1973 when Ring Ring was released in the UK was the first time the moniker ABBA was used.

Yes, I believe you’re correct. The UK was so late to the party in releasing the Ring Ring single that the name was already in place. Coincidence or did Polar not want to launch them in the UK with their individual names?

As well as being the first use of the name ABBA in any form, it also preceded (by a year) the first official use of the name alone without the individual names in parenthesis. For the Waterloo album and singles (including the Ring Ring remix) they had to revert to using ABBA with the four names in parenthesis. This was unnecessary in the UK as they’d never been known as anything other than ABBA but they had to toe the line. It’s possible that at the time of the original UK issue of Ring Ring, the temporary retention of the individual names was not being considered.

It’s therefore very easy to tell the difference between an Epic original 1973 issue of Ring Ring from its 1974 remix. The former (in my avatar) doesn’t have the individual names in parenthesis but the latter does. Also the first can be worth hundreds and the second just pocket money.

The individual names didn’t necessarily help that much anyway, as Agnetha was known as “Anna” at that point to avoid any pronunciation difficulties. Only a bit later on was she allowed to be Agnetha again.

Not that I’m aware of, but you can see the logic in it. CBS were the UK licensees for ABBA and Agnetha’s solo work was with CBS in Sweden so undoubtedly they had the option to release it. She did later record Here For Your Love and Golliwog in English but I can’t find evidence that it was actually released in the UK, just West Germany and Sweden.

I do like a lot of the early songs for their uplifting melodies, and rawness, the Guitar hooks etc, l can forgive the at times, slushy and quirky lyrics, and still enjoy the music. Ring Ring Album a favourite, the Deluxe, noting They recorded The Song Ring Ring' in four languages, l think it would be interesting to hear an instrumental only of it. I like the King Kong Song also the intro and pounding beat,and those fun screams.

A couple of us have mentioned Dum Dum Diddle in this thread. Well someone has done a vocal extraction:

There’s not a lot in it for me; I love both.

Although Ring Ring missed out on Eurovision, at least we know that it became a fairly big hit for ABBA across parts of Europe and in the narrative arc of the group’s history we know that they were nearly there by this stage. They knew they were onto something. It’s just a pity that the BBC strike cost the band their UK platform.

I’ve probably never heard the winning ‘73 Eurovision song but my guess is that had ABBA gotten through the Swedish heat, they probably would’ve smashed it in Luxembourg with Ring Ring.



Have you watched the entire ‘74 Eurovision on You Tube? Try not to get excited when the 9th act is up!!