Put On Your White Sombrero

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“Put On Your White Sombrero”

Single by ABBA
from the album Thank You for the Music

Released

1996

Format

PolyGram/Universal Music

ABBA singles chronology

"Dream World"
(1994)

"Put On Your White Sombero"
(1996)

"Put On Your White Sombrero" is a song by pop group ABBA recorded during sessions for the band's album Super Trouper released in 1980. This song, recorded in the Polar Studios in September of 1980, did however not make it to the final track list. After the band had written the tenth and final song for the album, in fact the title track - which was to become one of the biggest hits of their career, they decided to shelve "Put On Your White Sombrero".

The clearly latino influenced mid-tempo ballad, with lyrics including a number of Spanish expressions such as "bandana", "señorita" and "caballero", has a lead vocal performance by Anni-Frid Lyngstad and joint backing vocals by Lyngstad and Agnetha Fältskog. The song remained in the Polar Music archives until 1994 when it had its debut as a rarity in the box set Thank You For The Music, and was later also made available as a bonus track on PolyGram/Universal Music's expanded re-releases of the Super Trouper album, as one of the tracks on a limited edition bonus single with the ABBA Gold hits package in 1996 (issued separately in certain territories - see below), and as part of 2005's box set The Complete Studio Recordings .

The instrumental melodyline at they very end of "Put On Your White Sombrero" however survived as it was reused for another song as the band were recording tracks for the compilation The Singles: The First Ten Years in the Autumn of 1982. A new lyric was written and the song developped into "Cassandra", in fact one of the very last songs ever recorded by ABBA before they disbanded. "Cassandra" was first issued as the b-side of the single "The Day Before You Came".

In 1996, ABBA's German label released a CD EP with the following tracks: