Björn Ulvaeus says he was drunk when he wrote ABBA’s ‘The Winner Takes It All’

ABBA‘s Björn Ulvaeus has revealed that he wrote ‘The Winner Takes It All’ while he was drunk on whisky.

• READ MORE: ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus on the future of the ‘Voyage’ live show and if they’d ever play Glastonbury

The 1980 song is one of the Swedish group’s most iconic tracks, an account of the painful aftermath of a breakup, and in a new interview with The Times, Ulvaeus said that while he rarely wrote anything good while drinking, this was one notable exception.

The musician, who gave up alcohol in 2007, said: “I wrote that song very quickly while drinking whisky during my drinking days. I rarely wrote while intoxicated because you look at the words the next day and it’s garbage.”

“But most of ‘The Winner Takes It All’ is actually good. It’s not a personal story, but I tried to find the detail of a real human pain.”

Despite Ulvaeus’ claim that it was not written autobiographically, it has long been rumoured that the song was based on the real-life breakup between Ulvaeus and bandmate Agnetha Fältskog, who announced their separation in late 1979 and divorced in the year the song was released. Given Fältskog takes the lead vocal on the Ulvaeus-penned tune, the real-life circumstances at least lend it extra poignancy.

Elsewhere in the same interview, Ulvaeus said he was “troubled” over “severe problems” with the age gap with his current wife, Christina Sas, who is 28 years his junior.

In other news, last month it was revealed that the setlist for ABBA’s virtual Voyage concert residency is receiving a “small” revamp this May for its third anniversary in London.

ABBA Voyage first kicked off in May 2022, and was due to wrap in November last year, but has since been extended to January 2026 due to overwhelming demand – you can get tickets here.

The change in setlist comes after Ulvaeus hinted that more songs could work their way into future iterations of the show. Speaking to NME in April 2023, Ulvaeus said: “We did motion capture more songs that we have in this concert.”

“There are songs in the pipeline which might be animated and ‘ABBA-tarred’ in the future. Who knows? There might be a new song every now and then somewhere – but I can’t give you any details as of right now.”

Once the show wraps in London, the band intend on bringing the Voyage experience around the world, including Asia, Australia and North America though concrete plans have yet to be made public.

Reviewing the first night of the show on May 27 2022, NME gave it five stars and called it “an epic avatar mega-mix from a brave new world,” and said, “Ageing rockers and poppers are bound to imitate the idea, but it’ll be a struggle to come close to the experience of ABBA Voyage.

“We for one welcome our new ABBAtar overlords, if only for giving these songs back to us in a totally new and joyful way.”

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