Ring Ring - English Version

The title track to ABBA's first album, this was written by group members Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus along with their manager Stig Anderson. The first version had lyrics in Swedish, and for the English version, Phil Cody, who was Neil Sedaka's co-writer in the '70s, wrote the words. Says Cody: "It would have been Donny Kirshner or Wally Gold who would have come to me with the project. I was given the title: 'Ring, Ring,' and they said, 'See what you can do with it. Do your magic.' And I think at that point people were thinking I was the savior (laughing) and to tell you the truth that had nothing to do with anything. It went by so fast, it was just one of those things I did as a favor to Donny." Regarding the idea for the lyrics, Cody says, "That's just the turnaround of me. I mean, you just change gender roles and the song becomes about a girl waiting for a phone to ring, or it could be about a guy - whatever. It's who's singing the song. It wasn't any earth shattering idea. It was just something kind of simplistic. But it was easy to do and I wanted to write something poppy. And for me, poppy was always to stay as simple as you possibly can get." (Here's our full Phil Cody interview.)

The group submitted this song for the 1973 Eurovision Song Contest, but it was not chosen to represent Sweden. The following year, however, the group won the whole contest with their song "Waterloo."