Benny Andersson: The Real Songwriting Method Behind ABBA

Benny Andersson wrote or co-wrote nearly every song ABBA ever recorded.

Most pages ranking for his name today only cover his age, his marriages, and his net worth.

Almost none of them explain how he actually built a song.

He never had real formal training, and he worked backward from how most songwriters build a track.

Here's the real process behind the music, not just the biography around it.

Benny Andersson at the keyboard on the Dutch TV show Eddy Go Round in 1975, the real working method behind his ABBA songwriting on display

Benny Andersson performing on Eddy Go Round, March 4, 1975.

Image credit: Photo via Beeld en Geluid / NCRV, CC BY-SA 3.0 NL, via Wikimedia Commons.

Benny Andersson Learned Music by Ear, Not in a Classroom

The Accordion Came First

Benny Andersson was born December 16, 1946, in Stockholm, Sweden.

His father Gösta and his grandfather Efraim both played accordion around the house.

They bought him his own accordion at age six.

Gösta and Efraim taught him Swedish folk tunes, traditional dance music, and schlager songs by ear.

He got his own piano at age ten.

He taught himself to play it, mostly through trial and error.

He sat through one or two formal lessons early on.

He found them boring and quit before they could stick.

That gap between real instinct and real training never closed, and it shaped everything he wrote later.

His First Real Band

Andersson joined the Hep Stars as their keyboardist in October 1964.

The band became one of Sweden's biggest pop acts of the decade, nicknamed the "Swedish Beatles."

Their breakthrough came in March 1965 with a cover called "Cadillac."

Andersson soon started writing original material for the group instead of just playing covers.

He wrote or co-wrote real hits including "No Response," "Sunny Girl," and "Wedding."

On June 5, 1966, the Hep Stars happened to tour the same city as another band, the Hootenanny Singers.

That's where Andersson met Bjorn Ulvaeus, on a park bench in Linköping.

This site's own Bjorn Ulvaeus post covers that meeting and the folk group he led before ABBA in full.

Andersson and Ulvaeus wrote their first song together not long after, called "Isn't It Easy to Say."

The Hep Stars split up in 1969.

By then, Andersson already had a real, proven songwriting record built years before ABBA existed.

The Backward Songwriting Method Behind Every ABBA Hit

Most songwriters start with lyrics or a melody idea and build outward from there.

Andersson and Ulvaeus worked in close to the opposite order.

They recorded a full backing track first, before a single lyric existed.

Sweden's top session musicians played on these tracks alongside them.

The pair often tried more than one arrangement of the exact same melody.

A song might get tested as a straight rock arrangement, then again as a tango.

Only once a backing track felt genuinely right did the actual lyric-writing begin.

The finished track's mood and feel suggested what the song should actually say.

Polar Studios, the Stockholm studio Andersson and Ulvaeus co-owned, opened in 1978.

Much of this trial-and-error process played out inside that same building.

A Real Demo That Changed Shape Twice

"Like an Angel Passing Through My Room," from the 1979 album Voulez-Vous, shows this process in action.

Its earliest demo carried a placeholder title, "Twinkle, Twinkle," with Bjorn Ulvaeus singing a rough scratch lyric over the melody.

One early version tried a full-tempo arrangement with the group's signature layered harmonies.

That version got abandoned.

The song ended up close to a quieter, mostly synthesized arrangement instead.

The final lyric came only after that quieter sound was locked in.

Inside the Key Change That Makes SOS Work

SOS is one of the clearest examples of Andersson's real compositional instinct.

The verse sits in a minor key, carrying the song's lyrics about a relationship falling apart.

The chorus then lifts into the relative major key.

Musically, that shift feels hopeful and bright.

Lyrically, the words are still about heartbreak.

That tension between an uplifting key change and a genuinely sad lyric is exactly what makes the chorus hit as hard as it does.

It's a real, deliberate songwriting choice, not a happy accident.

ABBA released SOS in 1975.

It reached number 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States that November.

It climbed even higher in the UK, reaching number six.

What Came After ABBA

Andersson's songwriting career didn't end when ABBA did.

He and Bjorn Ulvaeus co-wrote the stage musical Chess, which opened in 1984.

The pair went even further in 1999 with Mamma Mia!, a stage musical built entirely from ABBA's own back catalog.

This site's own Mamma Mia Song post covers the original 1975 single that musical eventually took its name from.

Mamma Mia! became a hit film in 2008, decades after the songs themselves were first written.

Since 2001, Andersson has also led his own group, Benny Anderssons orkester, playing Swedish dance band music.

He married Anni-Frid Lyngstad in 1978, during ABBA's own most successful years.

This site's own Anni-Frid Lyngstad post covers her own real story before and during the band.

Curious which other real 70s act matches your own taste today?

Try the 70s Music Trivia Quiz and see how much you actually know.

Frequently Asked Questions

Did Benny Andersson write music before ABBA?

He started writing original songs years before ABBA existed, first for the Hep Stars, the Swedish pop group he joined as keyboardist in October 1964.

He wrote or co-wrote several of the band's genuine hits, including "No Response" and "Sunny Girl."

By the time the Hep Stars split up in 1969, he already had a real songwriting track record of his own.

How did Benny Andersson learn to play music?

He never had formal training that stuck.

His father and grandfather taught him accordion at age six, and he got his own piano at age ten, teaching himself through years of trial and error.

He tried a couple of formal piano lessons early on but found them boring and quit.

That self-taught foundation shaped how he built songs by ear instead of by theory.

What was the real songwriting process behind ABBA's music?

Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus built songs backward from the usual order.

They recorded full backing tracks first, sometimes testing a rock arrangement against a tango arrangement of the same melody, using top Swedish session musicians.

Only once a backing track felt right did they write the actual lyrics, letting the music's mood suggest what the song should say.

Why does SOS sound both sad and uplifting at once?

SOS shifts key partway through, moving from a minor-key verse into a major-key chorus even though the lyrics describe a relationship falling apart.

That contrast between hopeful-sounding music and heartbroken words was a deliberate choice, not an accident.

The song reached number 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States in November 1975.

What did Benny Andersson do after ABBA ended?

He kept writing music with Bjorn Ulvaeus, co-creating the stage musical Chess in 1984 and then Mamma Mia! in 1999, built entirely from ABBA's own song catalog.

Mamma Mia! later became a hit film in 2008.

Since 2001, Andersson has also led his own group, Benny Anderssons orkester, performing Swedish dance band music.