The Winner Takes It All


"The Winner Takes It All" is a song recorded by Swedish music group ABBA, released on 21 July 1980 as the lead single from the group's seventh studio album, Super Trouper. Penned by Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson, it is a ballad in the key of G-flat major featuring Agnetha Fältskog on lead vocals, reflecting on the end of a relationship. Although Ulvaeus has denied the song being about his divorce from Fältskog, he has stated the song is about the experience of a divorce. The single's B-side was the non-album track "Elaine".
Continuing ABBA's streak of successful singles, "The Winner Takes It All" topped the charts in the United Kingdom, where it became their eighth number one hit, as well as in Belgium, Ireland, and the Netherlands. The single became ABBA's fourth and final top ten chart hit in the United States, peaking at number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100. It has since become one of the group's most enduring hits. In a 1999 poll for Channel 5, "The Winner Takes It All" was voted Britain's favourite ABBA song. This feat was replicated in a 2010 poll for ITV. In a 2006 poll for a Channel Five programme, "The Winner Takes It All" was voted "Britain's Favourite Break-Up Song". The song has been covered by multiple artists, the most notable being Cher and Susan Boyle.
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Background

Ulvaeus and Andersson started writing "The Winner Takes It All" in the summer of 1979 in a cottage on the island of Viggsö. According to Andersson, the idea for the song suddenly came up "from old ideas, from old small musical pieces" they had. The demo had an original title of "The Story of My Life" and the first arrangement for the song was uptempo with a constant beat. However, they felt their first effort "much too stiff and metrical", so they left the song for a few days while they worked on other songs. Four days later they returned to the song, and Andersson came up with the idea of using a French chanson-style arrangement with a descending piano line and a looser structure. Ulvaeus then recorded a demo using nonsense French words for lyrics, and took the recording home to write the lyrics for "The Winner Takes It All". According to Ulvaeus, he drank whiskey while he was writing, and it was the quickest lyric he ever wrote. He said, "I was drunk, and the whole lyric came to me in a rush of emotion in one hour." Ulvaeus said that when he gave the lyrics to Fältskog to read, "a tear or two welled up in her eyes. Because the words really affected her."
Ulvaeus denies the song is about his and Fältskog's divorce, saying the basis of the song "is the experience of a divorce, but it's fiction. 'Cause one thing I can say is that there wasn't a winner or a loser in our case. A lot of people think it's straight out of reality, but it's not". However, Ulvaeus admitted that the heartache of their breakup inspired the song, but noted that the words in the song should not be taken literally. He said: "Neither Agnetha nor I were winners in our divorce." American critic Chuck Klosterman, who says "The Winner Takes It All" is " pop song that examines the self-aware guilt one feels when talking to a person who has humanely obliterated your heart" finds Ulvaeus' denial hard to believe in light of the original title, which Klosterman reports was "The Story of My Life." The booklet for the double CD compilation The Definitive Collection states "The Winner Takes It All" is the song where Bjorn admits that the sad experience of his and Agnetha's divorce the previous year left its mark on the lyrics."

Reception

Record World said of it that "Gripping vocal drama is augmented forcefully by plush orchestration."

Chart performance

"The Winner Takes It All" was a major success for ABBA, hitting No. 1 in Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands, South Africa and the United Kingdom. It reached the Top 5 in Austria, Finland, France, West Germany, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Zimbabwe, while peaking in the Top 10 in Australia, Canada, Italy, Spain and the United States. It was also the group's second Billboard [Hot Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks|Adult Contemporary Tracks|Adult Contemporary] #1. "The Winner Takes It All" was also a hit in Brazil: it was included on the soundtrack of "Coração Alado", a popular soap opera in 1980, as the main theme.
The track was listed as the 23rd most popular single on the US Billboard year-end chart for 1981.
As of September 2021, it is the group's fifth-biggest song in the UK with 920,000 chart sales.

Music video

A music video to promote the song was filmed in July 1980 on Marstrand, an island on the Swedish west coast. It was directed by Lasse Hallström. Appropriately, the video was shot ten days after the divorce of Björn Ulvaeus and Agnetha Fältskog was officially declared by the courts. It starts with a black-and-white photo montage of ABBA, then moves to the face of Agnetha singing the song. Interspersed in the video is footage of her walking alone, still photographs, and shots of the other happier members of the band.

Personnel

Additional musicians

Charts

Weekly charts

Chart Peak
position

Year-end charts

Chart Position
Italy 43
US Billboard Hot 10023
US Adult Contemporary 10
US Cash Box Top 10074
US A/C 28

Chart Peak
position
Sweden 85

Notable cover versions

In popular culture