Video hit ABBA

Abba - One Of Us

"One of Us," which had the working titles "Number 1" and "Mio Amore", was one of the last songs recorded for ABBA's 1981 album The Visitors, and features a lead vocal by Agnetha Faltskog. It was one of a number of tracks that explored the darker territory of Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson's songwriting as the two men's divorces were beginning to influence their musical output. Indeed, the message of the song was about a woman trying to revive a dead relationship. Despite the somewhat depressing context and reservations by manager Stig Anderson, "One of Us" was released as the 1st single from The Visitors, coupled with the non-album track "Should I Laugh or Cry" Ulvaeus had favored releasing it as the 1st single from the new album and was vindicated when the majority of the record companies agreed with him. Indeed, it proved to be a wise move as it was ABBA's last No. 1 single. The decision to release this as a single was made so late that it wasn't available in Swedish shops until after the album "The Visitors" had been released.

In the United Kingdom, this single was issued in a different sleeve. The official sleeve depicted the album cover photo, and was used in most countries. Epic Records wanted a different image for the British release, and used separate photos of the group members together with a large ABBA logo. Agnetha and Frida appeared on the front cover, with Bjorn and Benny on the back. The photos were actually out-of-date, as Frida was depicted still with her frizzy perm, while Bjorn was beardless. A limited edition picture disc using very similar artwork was also issued, Epic Records again making up for their earlier poor presentation of ABBA singles up until mid-1979.

The B-side, "Should I Laugh or Cry", included a spoken count-in (in Swedish) from Benny. This count-in appeared on UK and South African releases, but not internationally. The master tapes supplied to Epic contained the error, but were not picked up in time, and so appeared on the single release. In the early 2000s, Epic's rights to ABBA's music in the UK had long since expired. However, they still owned all the UK master tapes for the singles. These were then returned to Polar Music (itself owned by Universal Music) in Stockholm, who later issued the error count-in version as a "rarity" in The Complete Studio Recordings boxed set, thereby making it available to a worldwide audience (and on CD for the first time). The count-in version has now also been released on The Visitors (Deluxe Edition) CD released on April 23, 2012.

The lyrics:

They passed me by, all of those great romances

You were, I felt, robbing me of my rightful chances

My picture clear, everything seemed so easy

And so I dealt you the blow

One of us had to go

Now it's different, I want you to know

One of us is crying

One of us is lying in her lonely bed

Staring at the ceiling

Wishing she was somewhere else instead

One of us is lonely

One of us is only waiting for a call

Sorry for herself, feeling stupid, feeling small

Wishing she had never left at all

I saw myself as a concealed attraction

I felt you kept me away from the heat and the action

Just like a child, stubborn and misconceiving

That's how I started the show

One of us had to go

Now I've changed and I want you to know

One of us is crying

One of us is lying in her lonely bed

Staring at the ceiling

Wishing she was somewhere else instead

One of us is lonely

One of us is only waiting for a call

Sorry for herself, feeling stupid, feeling small

Wishing she had never left at all, never left at all

Staring at the ceiling

Wishing she was somewhere else instead

One of us is lonely

One of us is only waiting for a call

Sorry for herself, feeling stupid, feeling small