Fernando

Recording preparations for "Fernando" began in August 1975, with Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus making last-minute changes to the title before the sessions got under way. The song had carried the working title "Tango", and the final name came from a bartender named Fernando who worked at a Stockholm club the band frequented. The track was first cut for their fellow group member Anni-Frid Lyngstad, who included it on her second solo album, Frida ensam, released in 1975. Stikkan Anderson wrote the Swedish lyrics, which tell of a narrator consoling the heartbroken Fernando after the loss of his great love.

Lyngstad's Swedish version came out in January 1976 as a radio-only single in Sweden and a physical release in Norway, and it spent nine weeks at the top of the Svensktoppen radio chart while being voted the favorite song of the year. ABBA then re-recorded the song with new English lyrics by Ulvaeus, released on 12 March 1976. He described imagining two old and scarred freedom-fighters from the Mexican Revolution sitting outside at night, reminiscing about a long-ago battle, an image that came to him while lying under the stars one summer evening. In the finished recording, Lyngstad sings alone for roughly the first minute before Agnetha Fältskog joins her in harmony.

The English version sold six million copies in 1976 alone and topped charts in at least 13 countries, including a then record-breaking 14 weeks at number one on Australia's Kent Music Report. The B-side was "Hey, Hey, Helen" from the group's 1975 album ABBA, though some countries substituted other album tracks such as "Tropical Loveland" or "Rock Me".