One of Us

It was one of the last songs recorded for The Visitors, under the working titles Number 1 and Mio Amore, with Fältskog on lead vocal. The lyric follows a woman trying to revive a relationship she herself ended. Ulvaeus wanted it as the first single and most of the record companies agreed, despite misgivings from manager Stig Anderson. The decision came so late that it reached Swedish shops only after the album. The B-side was Should I Laugh or Cry, and the British and South African pressings carried a spoken count-in by Andersson that was left on by mistake. Lasse Hallström directed a video filmed in November 1981, in which Fältskog moves into a new house.

It topped the charts in Belgium, Denmark, West Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands and reached number three in the UK, where it was ABBA's twentieth and last consecutive top-ten hit. Atlantic in North America chose When All Is Said and Done as the lead single instead, and One of Us was not issued there until February 1983, when it reached number 107. Billboard ranked it fifth in its 2017 list of the 15 best ABBA songs. Pitchfork's Tom Ewing heard a cruel edge in it, with a woman regretting her new independence over a gorgeous melody.