The Winner Takes It All

ABBA member Bjorn Ulvaeus wrote "The Winner Takes It All" after separating from his wife and fellow band member, Agnetha Fältskog. It's about a divorce where one person doesn't want to separate and clings desperately to the marriage. It put Agnetha in the strange spot of being asked to sing a breakup song written by her ex-husband. Ulvaeus didn't intend it this way. He explained: "I sang a demo of it myself which a lot of people liked and said, you have to sing that. But I saw the sensible thing of course, it had to go to Agnetha. I remember coming to the studio with it and everyone said, Oh this is great, wonderful It was strange hearing her singing it. It was more like an actress doing something when she sang it, but deeply moving. Afterwards there were a few tears as well." Ulvaeus claimed that 90% of this song is fiction, which is why he didn't feel too bad about having his ex-wife sing it.

Bjorn has said that while he usually didn't use drugs or alcohol while writing, he had a bottle of brandy next to him while writing the lyrics for this song. It was very personal to him. He told The London Times March 26, 2010: "Usually it's not a good idea to write when you're drunk, but it all came out on that one. By the time I wrote 'The gods may throw their dice' the bottle was empty."

This isn't the first ABBA song to vividly portray a divorce. In 1976, years before the couples in the group split, they released "Knowing Me, Knowing You," which captures the sad feeling of being alone in a house you once shared with your spouse. That one was also written by Bjorn Ulvaeus. In the liner notes to the 2011 reissue of the Super Trouper album, he explained: "'Knowing Me, Knowing You' is an image of how it could be, a very strong image of someone walking around an empty apartment with lots of packing cases and stuff, and with plenty of memories in every room. That's the image I got, and there was no [real-life] divorce at the time. 'The Winner Takes It All' is more of an inside thing: it's not really an image, but simply about feelings."