Ring Ring (English version)

"Ring Ring (Bara Du Slog En Signal)"
A-side label of the original Swedish release
Single by ABBA
from the album Ring Ring
B-side	"Åh vilka tider"
Released	14 February 1973
Format	7" single
Recorded	10 January 1973, Metronome Studio,
Genre	Pop rock, glam rock, europop, schlager
Length	3:00
Label	Polar (Sweden) Epic (UK) Atlantic (US)
Songwriter(s)	Benny Andersson Björn Ulvaeus Stig Anderson
Producer(s)	Benny Andersson Björn Ulvaeus
ABBA singles chronology
"He Is Your Brother" (1972) "Ring Ring (Bara Du Slog En Signal)" (1973) "Love Isn't Easy (But It Sure Is Hard Enough)" (1973)
"He Is Your Brother" (1972) "Ring Ring (Bara Du Slog En Signal)" (1973) "Love Isn't Easy (But It Sure Is Hard Enough)" (1973)
Music video
"Ring Ring" on YouTube
Audio sample
"Ring Ring (Bara Du Slog En Signal)" file help

"Ring Ring" is a 1973 single by ABBA, which 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 Björn 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. The Swedish version reached No. 1 in the Swedish charts.

"Ring Ring" tells of a lover waiting all alone by the telephone for the object of her desire to call.

After the success of "People Need Love" in 1972 by Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid (as the group was then known), the group's manager, Stig Anderson, realised the potential of coupling the vocal talents of the women with the writing talents of the men. It was then decided that the quartet would record an LP. This eventually turned out to be the album Ring Ring.

Andersson, Ulvaeus and Anderson were invited to submit a song for the selection process for choosing the Swedish entry for the 1973 Eurovision Song Contest. After several days, Andersson and Ulvaeus came up with the tune for the Swedish version of "Ring Ring", with the working title "Klocklåt" (Clock Tune). Stig Anderson wrote the lyrics with the intention of making a "poppy" song, trying to remove the pomp and circumstance surrounding the Eurovision Song Contest at the time.

After this, the song was retitled "Ring Ring". 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.

On 10 January 1973, the song was recorded at the Metronome Studio in . Michael B. Tretow, the studio engineer, collaborated with Andersson and Ulvaeus over many of their subsequent singles and albums. Tretow had read a book about record producer Phil Spector, 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, this was far too expensive for this case. Thus, Tretow's solution was to simply record the song's backing track twice, in order to achieve an orchestral sound. By changing the speed of the tape between the overdubs, making the instruments marginally out of tune, this increased the effect. This was unlike anything that had been done before in Swedish music.