ABBA is widely recognized these days as one of the most renowned bands on the globe. To this day, the Swedish Five remain famous across the globe. Yet one of the group’s members, Agnetha Faltskog, has chosen a life away from the limelight.
Faltskog, along with Anni-Frid Lyngstad, was one of the primary vocalists of ABBA. With an all-time great pop voice, she persuaded listeners to dance to certain songs while hurting their hearts with others. Above all things, however, she became one of the most interesting music icons of all time with her other band members.
These days, Faltskog lives a solid life in Sweden, but that doesn’t mean she’s not continuously making new songs. Now, at 72, she looks wonderful!
There are relatively few individuals who haven’t heard ABBA. It doesn’t matter whether you were there when they played Waterloo for the first time or weren’t born for another 30 years. The 10-year-olds of today most likely dance just as enthusiastically as anybody ever did upon hearing the group’s songs.
ABBA: international superstars
Even picking a single favorite ABBA song is pretty much impossible. And that’s probably why they became such world-wide celebrities; there’s an ABBA song for every moment of our lives, no matter whether it’s sad, joyous, inspirational, or regretful.
Something that’s very remarkable about ABBA is the fact that all of the members practically vanished after the group’s separation. Sure, they continued to compose music, but they were pleased to live a peaceful life outside of the limelight. Agnetha Faltskog surely was, anyhow.
So what happened to her after ABBA’s split? And how did she get associated with the organization from the start? This is the beautiful tale of Agnetha Faltskog!
Agnetha was born on April 5, 1950, in Jönköping, Sweden. She was the first of two daughters of Knut Ingvar Fältskog, who worked in a department store, and Birgit Margareta Johansson. From a very early age, Agnetha Faltskog was interested in music. Some of her favorite performers were Tom Jones, Petulia Clark, and Dusty Sprinfgield, and she undoubtedly had skill.
At barely five years of age, Faltskog composed her first song, which was about two tiny “trolls”. She would regularly go to her neighbor’s home to play the piano; she began getting real lessons at age 8. She also sang in the local church choir.
In 1960, at the age of 13, Faltskog started the band The Cambers with her two childhood friends. They did only tiny engagements in the local community, and two years later she felt it was time for something different.
Agneta joined the Swedish folk music band Bernt Enghardt. The band went across Sweden, performing Swedish dance music.
“They had a singer named Agneta before me who quit,” Agnetha recounted. “They had printed posters looking for a new singer, and when they found me and after I auditioned, it was a big plus that I was named Agnetha as well.”
Faltskog worked as a telephonist for a car manufacturer at the same time as she was traveling with Bernt Enghardt, but her position wasn’t ideal.
Debut single at age 17
She arrived home late, “around 2 or 3 at night”, and was expected to be at work mere hours later. One day she even passed out at the auto business, and her mother handed her an ultimatum.
“‘Either you work as a normal person or you dedicate yourself fully to singing’,” Agnetha remembers her mother saying. “It wasn’t a tough choice; I wanted to keep singing.”
Agnetha continued singing with the Bernt Enghardt band for two years before finally breaking out to launch a solo career. It was after she launched her first solo record that she chose to add an “h” to her surname.
At the age of 17, Faltskog’s first song, Jag var s kär [I Was So In Love], was released. It swiftly soared to No. 1 on the Swedish sales chart in 1968, and shortly after, a man named Bjorn Ulvaeus heard her song on the radio.
“I remember hearing Agnetha’s first single on the radio. There was something so wonderful about her voice and the fact that she had written that song herself—it was magic,” Benny said in the BBC documentary Agnetha: Abba and After.
Benny Andersson added: “She did a couple sort of back-to-back, both good songs. She did some nice things, you know, singing in sync with herself.”
Transformation to ABBA
Now, Bjorn and Benny happened to be brilliant musicians and had worked together previously. Agnetha’s career skyrocketed after her debut hit, and soon she was slated to perform alongside Bjorn Ulvaeus.
“We did a TV show together, and she and I had a duet together. That was a fantastic moment,” he recalled. “That evening was when it actually happened; we fell in love, and then shortly after that, we were a couple.”
At the same time that Agnetha and Bjorn sang together, Benny fell in love with another singer, Anni-Frid Lyngstad.
Now, there were four highly excellent musicians in the same room, but they weren’t thinking about establishing a band together originally. Then, Anni-Frid and Agnetha participated as backing vocalists on the 1970 Bjorn and Benny album Lycka [Happiness].
The four quickly began to work together. In 1972, they released the song People Need Love, although it only garnered moderate popularity in Sweden. At this stage, the foursome dubbed themselves Björn and Benny, Agnetha and Anni-Frid. They opted to participate in Melodifestivalen, the Swedish qualifying competition for the Eurovision Song Contest, and performed the song Ring, Ring. They finished third, but the song became a pretty huge success in Sweden.
Ring extended to numerous European nations, where it maintained its popularity. By this time, the ensemble had begun to acquire notoriety all over the country. One year later, in 1974, they would finally accomplish their aspirations.
ABBA’s “Waterloo’ success
They joined Melodifestivalen once again, but this time with a song named Waterloo. They won the Swedish qualifying and then did something that would alter the path of music history before they played at the Eurovision Song Contest in Brighton: they decided that their group would have a new name.
ABBA was born.
While ABBA went on to win the Eurovision Song Contest—a time in ABBA history that many believed to be the most memorable—Agnetha also had other things on her mind.
In 1971, she and Bjorn Ulvaeus were married, and in 1973, they had their firstborn daughter, Linda. In the thick of this ABBA craze, which intensified by the day, Agnetha was pregnant.
Needless to say, having children while becoming one of, if not the largest, band on the globe was undoubtedly tough.
In fact, Agnetha said that she was sort of delighted that they didn’t win the Melodifestivalen with Ring Ring because she was months away from giving birth to Linda.
“I managed to combine marriage, giving birth, divorce, and world-wide success during the 10–12 years we were doing ABBA,” Faltskog remarked. “It wasn’t easy, I can tell you that. It wasn’t easy leaving home, particularly because dad [Bjorn] was gone as well. We left our children, but we made sure that they were taken care of.
Agnetha Faltskog and Bjorn Ulveaus
“We weren’t away as much as one might think. If we were abroad for 14 days, we determined that we’d be home for 14 days as well.”
World-wide success with ABBA was fantastic for all its members, but Agnetha still agonized over the fact that she had to leave her children.
It was challenging for her, and she even told herself that she might simply quit the organization.
“It was tough times. Can I handle this or should I leave? How can we fix this?’ “I said that we had to be at home the same amount of time we were out touring,” Agnetha added.
“I was never going to leave [the group], but it was something I could tell myself just to manage, to get everyone to understand how tough it was.”
The triumph of Waterloo was great. But that was only the beginning of what was to be a new period in music history. Since winning Eurovision didn’t guarantee success post-competition, it took some time before ABBA got their next major hit.
ABBA: Hits
18 months later, they published the song SOS, which also became a great success. On the same album, ABBA, from 1975, the band released the song Mamma Mia, which ascended to the number one spot on charts all over the globe.
It reached No. 1 in Australia for 10 weeks, and the ABBA frenzy “down under” was wild. Australia actually awarded the group a total of six Number One singles, becoming one of the most ABBA-crazy nations.
Over the following years, ABBA produced additional albums, and the hits simply kept on coming. Songs like Fernando and Dancing Queen immediately found their mark, with the final one becoming the group’s lone No. 1 in the US.
At this time, ABBA had fashioned themselves into one of the most popular groups in the world — and properly so. The list of hits the trio released is enormous, including songs like Money, Money, Money, Knowing Me, Knowing You, Chiquitita, The Winner Takes It All, Super Trouper, Take A Chance On Me, and Lay All Your Love On Me.
Agnetha and Bjorn were divorcing when ABBA released their sixth album in 1979. It wasn’t nasty, however, and the band went on with their professional duties.
Agnetha Faltskog sang a song about divorce.
Agnetha sang the song The Winner Takes It All, which was about their divorce.
“The fact that he wrote it exactly when we divorced is really touching.” “I didn’t mind,” Agnetha said. “It was fantastic to do that song because I could put so much emotion into it.”
“I didn’t mind sharing it with the general public,” she said. “It didn’t feel wrong at all. That song contains so much.”
Agnetha discussed her divorce from Bjorn with the Daily Mail in 2013. She claims they are on excellent terms, if only for the sake of their two children.
“Bjorn and I have dealt with the heartbreak,” she said. “It’s friendly. There are many ups and downs in love, but I stay positive. I haven’t shut any doors.”
Anni-Frid and Benny, who married in 1978, divorced two years later. The band thought they were very much done in 1982.
Career as a sole proprietor
They published a new album, The Singles: The First Ten Years, which included all of their greatest hits as well as two new tracks. However, when New Year’s Eve approached that year, ABBA decided to take a hiatus.
If they wanted to, they could always get back together in a few years, according to the group. But that never came to pass.
Instead, Agnetha pursued a solo career. She recorded a number of songs, with the lovely Wrap Your Arms Around Me being her greatest success from her three albums published in the 1980s.
She opted to go away from the limelight after achieving little success. Agnetha was quiet and desired a life away from the limelight. She still resides on an island outside of Stockholm, Sweden. And she still looks fantastic!
Faltskog opted to leave ABBA and her star career behind. However, many people believed she was being quite secretive in doing so.
“I’m not very mysterious.”
Her decision to sequester herself was rather strange. Agnetha Faltskog, on the other hand, was dissatisfied with such a view.
“I have been described as mysterious, but I am not,” she told The Guardian. “I think I’m just very grounded.” My life is full of other things; I have children, grandchildren, two dogs, and a large rural estate. “I have a life of my own.”
Agnetha is the grandma of three grandkids. However, they don’t know much about their grandmothers’ background as global celebrities.
“I spend a lot of time with the grandchildren,” stated Faltskog. “They like it when we all sing together. It’s wonderful to hear them, and they can truly sing. I don’t speak to them much about Abba and the past, but they will become more conscious as they get older. Tilda, the oldest, already knows a little bit more.”
According to The Guardian, Agnetha Faltskog is worth around $20 million. Because there’s speculation about ABBA returning, that figure might rise shortly.
ABBA is about to release new music.
Faltskog’s most recent album was published in 2013, but Bjorn Ulvaeus has promised that new ABBA songs will be released.
“There will be new music this year; that is a certainty; it is no longer a case of it might happen; it will happen,” Ulvaeus told the Herald Sun.
“We’re really, really close.” For the first time in 40 years, the four of us stand in the studio, and there’s something special about knowing what we’ve gone through. It’s difficult to put into words, but we have such deep, powerful relationships.”
I am completely smitten by Agnetha Faltskog’s vocals. She was a great superstar, and I want to see her on stage again soon.
Which ABBA song is your favorite? Fill in the blanks with your choice. Meanwhile, please share this post in celebration of ABBA!