Waterloo: 50 Years Later

I believe that, as a rule, the vast majority of pop music listeners are, and best, only half listening. This is a feature, not a bug. In fact it lead to one of the greatest pranks of all time, Adriano Celentano’s 1972 hit single “Prisencolinensinainciusol,” which was written on the premise that if a song was in English, or – and here’s his devious genius – merely sounded like it, it would be a hit song in Italy. It got to number five there and all the way up to number two in Wallonia, which is not a joke as one does not joke about Wallonia.

But I digress.

The notion that pop music listeners are barely listening is also a partial explanation of how Weird Al Yankovic’s songs become hits.

It’s late summer, 1995 and Collio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise” come on the radio. Mostly people remembered the chorus, the strings and the “though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death” bit. Sure, Coolio fans could probably rap the whole thing but people really listened to the lyrics when Weird Al released his version.

Now “Gangsta’s Paradise” – and, to be fair, “Amish Paradise” – are lyrically interesting, but a great many pop songs benefit from people paying little attention to the words themselves.

To illustrate my point, imagine that reality consists of a vast network of related moments and that, at times, one can bleed into the other.

It’s a grim June day and Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, surveys the aftermath of the bloody Battle of Waterloo. 50,000 casualties lay strewn about the field, the wounded scream and the smell of gunpowder fills the air. Suddenly, he thinks to himself, “I don’t know what the deuce a eurovision is but somehow a love song about this moment is going to win it one day.”

Preposterous, yes?

But not only did it come to pass 50 years ago but the song that did it, ABBA’s “Waterloo,” has in the intervening half century been called the greatest song to ever to win Eurovision.

It begins with a suitably absurd verse:

My, my

At Waterloo, Napoleon did surrender

Oh, yeah

And I have met my destiny in quite a similar way

First off, Napoleon didn’t surrender at Waterloo; he quit the field and had to be chased down by the Prussians. This is no nit I am picking. The idea that Waterloo was the site of Napoleon’s surrender, and not the cause of it, is the metaphor that drives every word in the song. No surrender at Waterloo, no song.

It gets worse because of course it does. Lyricist Stig Anderson – and here I violate my rule against messing with people named Stig – gives us a line so purple it would make Grimace blush: He suggests that his lover leaving him is his personal Waterloo. The supposed surrender of Napoleon, the Little Corporal who spent the better part of a dozen years waging war and terrorizing Europe leaving six million dead in his wake, is somehow a metaphor for your broken heart?

And here, Stig looked at the notepad upon which his lyrics were written and said, “Sure. Let’s go with that.”

Every other line in the song furthers this theme and is thus stupid by default.

The song was specifically written for the band’s third attempt to win Melodifestivalen 1974, a contest to determine Sweden’s entry to the Eurovision contest, though many have noted that the chorus melody is lifted directly from The Foundations’ 1968 “Build Me Up, Buttercup.” The similarity frankly can’t be unheard.

Their performance is beyond ridiculous.

The Hollies’ suit against Radiohead over the similarity between “The Air That I Breathe” and “Creep” was lost by the latter over less.

“Waterloo:” a premise so inane as to be borderline stupid, an uncredited musical lifting of a chorus, and a smash hit.

See, it’s a good thing people aren’t really listening to pop music, sometimes.