When ABBA met the Sex Pistols

Fifty years after ABBA won the Eurovision Song Contest with their worldwide hit Waterloo, we’re taking a look at how the timeless supergroup unknowingly influenced punk rock’s finest sons.

While the squeaky-clean pop icons attracted a largely teenage following, the Pistols were described as “public enemy number one”, after infamously swearing on Bill Grundy’s Today show on Thames Television.

The bands’ respective genres were at opposite ends of the musical spectrum, with ABBA penning a string of mainstream pop hits and the Sex Pistols leading the UK’s booming punk revolution. However, despite their differences, reports have surfaced of how the Pistols secretly held their Swedish rivals in high regard.

In an era when it wasn’t socially acceptable for the bad boys of punk to admit they were fans, ABBA reportedly became the Pistols’ guilty pleasure.

When did ABBA win Eurovision?

ABBA are among the world’s top-selling artists in chart history, with an estimated 385 million records sold globally and a fan club still going strong after half a century. They achieved overnight fame when they won the 19th Eurovision Song Contest held in Brighton Dome on 6th April 1974.

Agnetha Fältskog, Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus and Anni-Frid Lyngstad (the four members of ABBA) were virtually unknown outside of Sweden at the time. The band formed in 1972 in Stockholm, with the name based on the members’ initials. Previously, they hadn’t achieved much commercial success, but Eurovision changed all this.

The moment they burst onto the stage in a colourful whirl of glitter, silk and spandex, with the opening riff of Waterloo belting out, viewers knew they were witnessing something special.

Not only did they win the contest hands down, but they also had a number one hit all over the world and became global superstars overnight.

Launch of the Sex Pistols

Elsewhere, the launch of the Sex Pistols was kind of similar, but for different reasons. The punk band also formed in 1972, in London, with local teenagers Steve Jones, 17, on lead vocals; Wally Nightingale, 16, on guitar; and Paul Cook, also 16, on drums.

Like ABBA, they had a relatively small local following, but all this changed in 1974, when punk promoter Malcolm McLaren became their manager.

Nightingale left the band; Jones took over as guitarist and 18-year-old art student Glen Matlock joined on bass guitar. John Lydon, alias Johnny Rotten, was the final cog in the wheel, taking over as vocalist in 1975 at the age of 19.

The band earned a large local following around King’s Road, the birthplace of punk, but with the media branding punk rock as corrupting youth, mainstream success seemed unlikely.

All this changed after the Pistols’ notorious appearance on the Today show in 1976, when the band caused national outrage by uttering the first four-letter expletives on a pre-watershed television programme. Later describing it as “the greatest moment in live TV history”, Cook said the broadcast “changed everything” for the band.

During the show, Grundy suggested that receiving a reported £40,000 advance from a record company went against the Pistols’ anti-materialistic ethos. The interview on 1st December 1976 descended into a hostile exchange of insults. During the next two minutes, the largely unknown band was catapulted into anti-hero status, with front page headlines across the national press the next day.

Reaching number two in the UK charts; their second single, God Save the Queen, released in 1977, capitalised on their notoriety but the band’s roller-coaster ride lasted a relatively short time, as they split up in January 1978, after an unsuccessful tour of the United States.

Pistols’ ABBA links

Fans didn’t realise at the time that the anarchic band members were secret ABBA fans, as it would have ruined their street credibility. In fact, rumour has it that Matlock, chief songwriter and original bassist for the Sex Pistols, was keen to cultivate more of a pop sound in some of their songs.

Recent reports suggested he lifted the bassline for the Sex Pistols’ 1977 anthem, Pretty Vacant, straight from ABBA’s 1975 hit single, SOS.

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Matlock admitted the track was “inspired” by the ABBA riff.

McLaren had given him some American music fliers that said, “blank generation” and he composed Pretty Vacant based on the “air of despondency” in London at the time.

However, he felt it was “short of a riff” and needed more melody. After hearing SOS, Matlock realised the riff would “add a flourish” to Pretty Vacant, so he went to the rest of the band and said,

“Guys, I’ve got it!” Punks pogoing at Pistols’ gigs in the Seventies would probably have been shocked to learn they were dancing to an ABBA bassline, but it worked.

The new documentary, ABBA: Against the Odds, describes the Swedes as having “relentless good cheer”, in contrast to the Brits, who were always “teetering on the edge”.

In 1977, McLaren decided to do a Scandinavian tour with the Pistols. Norwegian music journalist Teddie Dahlin, who covered the tour, recalled roadie Steve “Rodent” Connolly had a cassette player backstage. “On the cassette player, they had one cassette and it was ABBA,” she mused. “They played it 24/7, all the time.

“It was Rodent’s job to turn it over when it got to the end. It’s a miracle it lasted the whole tour! They were huge ABBA fans.”

Famous meeting

As famous meetings go, when ABBA met the Sex Pistols, the occasion probably couldn’t have gone much worse for the kings of punk.

During his 2021 live tour, Could I Be Wrong, Could I Be Right, appearing in Bury St Edmunds, Lydon spoke of the time when new bassist Sid Vicious met ABBA. Lewisham-born Vicious, alias John Richie, had joined the Pistols in February 1977, when he was 19. He was described as embodying the “decadent, dark and nihilistic” side of punk.

Speaking to the audience about Vicious, Lydon revealed, “Sid’s favourite band in the whole world was ABBA. He adored ABBA! “One of the worst things that ever happened to him was at Stockholm Airport, where we spotted ABBA.”

Far from being the dark man of punk, Vicious, a little merry from drinking strong Scandinavian ale, turned into a star-struck teenager. Lydon mused, “Sid went running over to them, shouting, ‘You’re my favourite band!’ but he sounded like he was on sedatives!”

Vicious had been rendered almost speechless and was stumbling over his words, causing great hilarity among his fellow band members. Sadly, Lydon didn’t reveal how ABBA reacted to Vicious.

However, the godfather of punk launched into an impromptu singalong version of ABBA’s hit song, Fernando, with the Bury St Edmunds crowd joining in, to remember the Sex Pistols’ late bassist, who sadly passed away in 1979.

Somehow, people may never look at the Sex Pistols in the same light after reading these shocking revelations, but you can perhaps understand where their love of ABBA came from: the Swedish supergroup remain a firm favourite of many an adoring fan.