Agnetha Faltskog became a superstar with ‘ABBA’ – better sit down before you see her today, age 72 –

Once more, they competed in Melodifestivalen, but this time they used the song Waterloo. Before they performed at the Eurovision Song Contest in Brighton, they decided that their group would have a new name, altering the course of music history. They had won the Swedish qualification.

Agnetha had other thoughts while ABBA went on to win the Eurovision Song Contest, which many people believe to be the most iconic moment in ABBA history.

She married Bjorn Ulvaeus in 1971, and the couple welcomed Linda, their first child, in 1973. Agnetha was expecting while this ABBA mania, which was growing daily, was in full swing.

Having children while growing to be one of, if not the largest, groups on the planet was undoubtedly difficult.

Agnetha admitted that, given that she was only a few months away from giving birth to Linda, she was actually kind of relieved that Ring Ring didn’t help them win the Melodifestivalen.

“I managed to combine marriage, giving birth, divorce and a world-wide success during the 10-12 years we were doing ABBA,” Faltskog said. “It wasn’t easy, I can tell you that. It wasn’t easy leaving home, especially since dad [Bjorn] was away as well. We left our children but we made sure that they were being taken care off.

“We weren’t away as much as one might think. If we were away for 14 days, we decided that we’d be home for 14 days as well.”

All of ABBA’s members experienced incredible success on a global scale, but Agnetha continued to have trouble with having to leave her kids.

She even told herself that she might just leave the group because it was so difficult for her.

“It was tough times, ‘can I handle this or should I leave? How can we solve this?’” I said that we had to be at home the same amount of time we were out touring,” Agnetha continued.

“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 Battle of Waterloo was a huge success. However, it was only the start of a brand-new era in music history. It took some time before ABBA had their next big hit because placing first in the Eurovision competition did not ensure success after the competition.

They then released the song SOS, which was also a big hit, 18 months later. The song Mamma Mia, which was included on the same album as ABBA from 1975, reached the top of charts all over the world.

It held the No. 1 spot for 10 weeks in Australia, and ABBA fever “down under” was insane. Australia, one of the ABBA fanatic nations, actually gave the group a total of six Number One hits.

ABBA released several albums over the ensuing years, and the hits just kept on coming. Songs like Fernando and Dancing Queen quickly became popular; the latter was the only No. 1 single for the group in the US.

At this point, ABBA had established themselves as one of the most well-known bands in the world, and for good reason.

In 1979, ABBA’s sixth album was being released as Agnetha and Bjorn were divorcing. It wasn’t ugly, though, and the band carried on with their work as professionals.

Their divorce was the subject of the song The Winner Takes It All, which Agnetha performed.

“The fact he wrote it exactly when we divorced is touching really. I didn’t mind,” Agnetha said. “It was fantastic to do that song because I could put in such feeling.”