1977 · Behind the Songs
Five minutes and forty-nine seconds — the opening track of “ABBA: The Album” that became a single almost nobody heard.
ABBA: The Album, released in 1977, opens with its most expansive gesture. “Eagle,” sung jointly by Agnetha Fältskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, runs 5:49 — the longest studio recording ABBA ever made — and it uses every second: a slow-building, almost prog-rock arrangement that lets the song rise, circle, and finally land.
For all its scale, “Eagle” was never intended as a worldwide single. On May 2, 1978, Polar Music released it — edited down to 4:25 — as the third and final single from the album, but only in select European territories and Australia; in some countries it appeared as a double A-side with “Thank You for the Music.” It remains one of the deep cuts fans reach for when they want to show that ABBA were more than a singles machine.
Its placement on the album matters. As the opening track, “Eagle” sets the tone for a record that also carries “Take a Chance on Me” and “The Name of the Game.” Where those songs are precision-tooled pop, “Eagle” sprawls — guitars, keyboards, and those stacked harmonies stretching across nearly six minutes.
Heard now, it feels like a band giving itself permission. The most meticulous pop group of the decade lets a song breathe, and the result is a small epic hiding in plain sight at the start of one of their biggest albums.