They were announced as "Benny Andersson, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Björn Ulvaeus and Agnetha Fältskog". The host for the evening was Alicia Lundberg. Frida revealed in an interview in 2007 that she had sewn the outfits for herself and Agnetha for this peformance. In fact Frida wore her yellow trouser suit again for Spotlight in Austria about 12 days later.
A black and white photo from that night was used on the back cover of their "Ring Ring" album.
The transmission was taped but later erased by STV. One dedicated ABBA fan able to research the STV archives confirms, "I have even tried ALL the Scandinavian TV-companies... I have watched every programme from that particular day in the archives, just to make sure there isn't just a 5 sec clip somewhere!". It does not exist in Norwegian TV archives either. Perhaps it is still in the archives of Denmark or Finland? Another theory is that there was public outrage when they din't win which is why public voting was introduced in 1974. Therefore wouldn't it have been covered in a news broadcast where maybe a clip of ABBA was shown while the news presenter said how the public thought this was the best song? A good theory perhaps?
So unfortunately, no known VISUAL copy of this performance exists. But here you can HEAR it for the first time:
AUDIO ONLY - "Ring Ring"
Interesting points to note:-
- The winning song that went on to represent Sweden was "Sommar'n Som Aldrig Säger Nej" (The Summer That Never Says No) by Malta (renamed Nova & The Dolls for the Eurovision Song Contest) and ended up coming 5th. One half of the duo Malta was Claes af Geijerstam who was ABBA's sound engineer on the 1979 Tour and Frida's co-host for th3 4 TV shows in 1981 "Lite Grand i Örat".
Other familiar names taking part in the 1973 Melodifestivalen were:-
- Karin & Anders Glenmark (later Gemini) who came fourth with Glenmarks (who also included their Uncle Bruno Glenmark and his wife Ann-Louise Hanson)
- Ted Gärdestad
- Lill-Babs
- Lars Berghagen who came 7th with "Ding Dong" and
- Peter Himmelstrand (later co-author of the Harry Edgington book "ABBA The Lovers Who Conquered the World") who wrote the song which came in 9th place.
- Click here for a summary chart on the performers, the songs and where they came in the competition
A full list of those appearing is available here
Before the song:
"Inga-Lill
Nilsson sang song number 3, ''A Frozen Rose'' there, And now we've come
to song number 4 [called] ''Ring Ring.'' Lyrics and Music are written by
three men; Stikkan Anderson, Benny Andersson and Björn
Ulvaeus and conducting the orchestra is Lars Samuelsson, who has also
arranged the melody for song number 4. It is going to be performed by
four artists. Please welcome Benny Andersson, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Björn
Ulvaeus and Agnetha Fältskog!"
After the song:
"And that was song number 4, ''Ring Ring,'' sung by Benny Andersson,
Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Björn Ulvaeus and Agnetha Fältskog!"
