History
"The Winner Takes It All", original demo title "The Story of My Life", was written by both Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson, with Agnetha Fältskog singing the lead vocal. The lyrics to the song were thought to mirror the divorce between Ulvaeus and Fältskog in 1979, similar to the 1981 song "When All Is Said and Done", in which Ulvaeus deals with the divorce between Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Benny Andersson in 1981.
Ulvaeus denies the song is about his and Fältskog's divorce, saying the basis of the song "is the experience of a divorce, but it's fiction. There wasn't a winner or a loser in our case. A lot of people think it's straight out of reality, but it's not". American critic Chuck Klosterman, who says "The Winner Takes It All" is " pop song that examines the self-aware guilt one feels when talking to a person who has humanely obliterated your heart" finds Ulvaeus' denial hard to believe in light of the original title.
Fältskog has also repeatedly stated that though "The Winner Takes It All" is her favorite ABBA song and that it has an excellent set of lyrics, the story is not that of her and Ulvaeus: she was no loser in their divorce. Ulvaeus also wrote the lyrics for Fältskog's 1979 live number 'I'm Still Alive'.
In a 1999 poll for Channel Five, "The Winner Takes It All" was voted Britain's favourite ABBA song. This feat was replicated in a 2010 poll for ITV. In a 2006 poll for a Channel Five programme, "The Winner Takes It All" was voted "Britain's Favourite Break-Up Song."
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“A man will not need to study history to find out what is best for his own culture.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“There is a history in all men’s lives,
Figuring the natures of the times deceased,
The which observed, a man may prophesy,
With a near aim, of the main chance of things
As yet not come to life.”
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“All history becomes subjective; in other words there is properly no history, only biography.”
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