Samples from the album can be heard on their official MySpace page. 19.

The single gave the group their big break in several European countries (although the rest of Europe, North America and Australia would be introduced to ABBA the following year).

The song was written in Swedish by Benny Andersson and Bjrn Ulvaeus, along with their manager Stig Anderson, with an original title of Ring Ring (Bara du slog en signal) (Ring Ring (If Only You Called)).

Translation into English lyrics was helped by Neil Sedaka and Phil Cody.

After several days, Andersson and Ulvaeus came up with the music for the Swedish version of Ring Ring, with the working title Klocklt (Clock Tune).

Anderson wrote the lyrics with the intention of making a pop-oriented song, trying to remove the pomp and circumstance surrounding the Eurovision Song Contest at the time.

To make it more accessible to a universal audience, Anderson asked American songwriter Neil Sedaka, together with his songwriting partner, Phil Cody, to pen the lyrics for an English version.

Tretow, who later collaborated with Andersson and Ulvaeus on many singles and albums, had read a book about record producer Phil Spector ( Richard Williams book Out of His Head: The Sound of Phil Spector ), 2 famed for his Wall of Sound treatment to the songs that he produced.

While Spector used several musicians playing the same instruments in the same recording studio at the same time, such a technique would be far too expensive for the recording of Ring Ring.

Tretows solution was to simply record the songs backing track twice in order to achieve an orchestral sound.

Changing the speed of the tape between the overdubs, making the instruments marginally out of tune, increased the effect.

No. 2 respectively.

They toured Sweden, and despite the failure of Ring Ring to represent the country at the 1973 Eurovision Song Contest, they began to prepare themselves for Melodifestivalen 1974 with Waterloo.

On the official South African year-end chart for 1974, Ring Ring placed 13th and its successor Waterloo finished 14th.

It topped the charts in Belgium, becoming the first of 16 No.

ABBA there.

Ring Ring was the groups first release in the UK in October 1973, but failed to chart, selling only 5,000 copies.

Sweden for selling 100,000 copies.

In Scandinavia the single has sold 200,000 copies.

A remixed version of the song, with overdubbed saxophone by Ulf Andersson, was later described by Carl Magnus Palm as having a superfluous saxophone solo and leaden sound.

This version reached No.

UK in July 1974, 8 with Rockn Roll Band issued on the B-side.

The remix later hit No.

Australia. A second remixed version, based upon the one that had been released in the UK, was included as a bonus track on the original North American release of the Waterloo album.

A German-language version of the song was also recorded but failed to chart in West Germany.

A Spanish version was also recorded (with lyrics by Doris Band), but was not released until the 1993 CD compilation Ms ABBA Oro in selected countries, and internationally on the 1999 edition of ABBA Oro: Grandes xitos.

For this reason, the remix did not appear on the 1994 four-CD box-set Thank You for the Music.

In 1999, a CD box set of singles was released that included the remix, but it had been mastered from a vinyl single rather than the unavailable master tape.

In 2001, The Definitive Collection was released, which finally included the 1974 single remix sourced from the master tape.

It was later revealed on Carl Magnus Palms website that Polar Music had acquired the master tapes from Epic Records in the UK.

The beginning of this version includes a riff from the Judas Priest song Breaking the Law.

Samples from the album can be heard on their official MySpace page.

Ringa Ringa Mp3 Song