Eagle (song)

"Eagle"
Single by ABBA
from the album ABBA: The Album
B-side "Thank You for the Music"
Released May 1978
Format Single
Recorded 1 June 1977
at Marcus Music Studio
Genre Pop, Rock
Length 5:51 (album version)
4:25 (single version)
3:33 (radio edit)
Label Polar Music
Writer(s) Benny Andersson
Björn Ulvaeus
Producer(s) Benny Andersson
Björn Ulvaeus
ABBA singles chronology
"Take a Chance on Me"
(1978)		 "Eagle"
(1978)		 "Summer Night City"
(1978)
Music video
"Eagle" on YouTube

The song "Eagle" was recorded in 1977 by Swedish pop group ABBA. It was the first track on the group's fifth album, ABBA: The Album and the longest track they ever recorded (at 5:51, 1 second longer than "The Day Before You Came" at 5:50). This was the third and last official single from ABBA: The Album, and was released only in a limited number of territories with "Thank You for the Music" as the B-side. The song was not released as a single in the UK or US.

History

"Eagle" was written and composed by Benny Andersson & Björn Ulvaeus, with Agnetha Fältskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad sharing the lead vocals. The recording, which commenced on 1 June 1977, had the working titles of "High, High" and "The Eagle". Lyricist Ulvaeus was inspired by Richard Bach's novel Jonathan Livingston Seagull when he wrote the lyrics for this song. In later years, music critics have hailed "Eagle" as one of ABBA's more outstanding tracks in terms of lyrics.

Reception

"Eagle" was not a major success on the charts. One reason was that the song was already available on The Album, another was the limited release only in countries like Australia, Austria, Belgium (where it did top the charts), France, West Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland. To make the song more radio-friendly it was heavily edited down from 5:51 to 4:25 by omitting an instrumental break and the 3rd chorus. Australia and France even got an edit from the edit, with the song fading shortly after the 2nd chorus making it last just 3:33, 2:18 shorter than the album version. It was released then withdrawn as a single in the US [1]

The single was released in May 1978 to fill the gap between the previous single, "Take a Chance on Me" and the next, a completely new track, eventually called "Summer Night City". The B-side of "Eagle", "Thank You for the Music", was later released as a single outright in a few countries after the group had disbanded, namely in the UK, where "Eagle" had not been released as a single.

Music video

The single was promoted with a music video directed by Lasse Hallström, while an earlier, much more interesting video in terms of special effects was included as a part of ABBA: The Movie.

1999 re-edit

The original 4:25 single edit was issued on CD for the first time in 1993 on the compilation More ABBA Gold: More ABBA Hits. However, for the 1999 re-release of this album, plus subsequent releases, a new version based on the 1978 edit was created. Unfortunately this edit missed out a vital instrumental-only section at the end of the second chorus prior to the closing instrumental, thereby sounding disjointed. The original edit (or at least an exact re-creation of it) was finally issued again on the deluxe version of ABBA: The Album in 2007.

Chart positions

Chart Position
Australian Singles Chart 82
Austrian Singles Chart 17
Belgian Singles Chart 1
Dutch Singles Chart 4
French Singles Chart 36
German Singles Chart 6
South Africa 2
Swiss Singles Chart 7

Cover versions

Appearances in other media

References

External links