Bjorn Ulvaeus Music Quotations

In the beginning of my career, I wanted to be chased by girls more than anything - that's why I got the guitar. By the time we were in ABBA, the music was the only important thing.

Everyone should pursue whatever is original in oneself. That's the way for a long life in music.

Stockholm is unique in that it's built on islands and surrounded by water, so you get this enormous sense of freedom. It's got everything you could possibly need - everything New York or London has but without all the people and traffic. It's also become a very creative city, not only for music but also for fashion and computer games.

The music of ABBA is not that happy. It might sound happy, in some strange way, but deep within, it's not happy music. It has that Nordic melancholic feeling to it. What fools you is the girls' voices. You know, I do think that is one of the secrets about ABBA. Even when we were really quite sad, we always sounded jubilant.

I do think that it's better for a musical to live its life first because if you see it on the screen, would you like to go to the theater after that? Probably not. You've seen it. And that's the mystery of a musical that hasn't been filmed. You're bloody meant to go there and buy your ticket.

Folk music is where I come from originally. The very first thing that introduced me to playing guitars at all was skiffle - my cousin had been in London the summer that skiffle was big.