Carla Wehbe took on an ABBA classic for her Like A Version debut, and absolutely delivered.
Taking on ABBA’s 1980 ballad “The Winner Takes It All”, the Eora/Sydney artist stripped things back and turned up the emotion. Surrounded by a full band, strings, pedal steel, and lush harmonies, Wehbe delivered a slow-burning, goosebump-inducing rendition that hits hard where it counts.
“I wanted to make it as emotional and as powerful, I guess, as possible,” Wehbe said of her rendition, admitting that she threw every kind of instrument she enjoys at the cover to put her own spin on it… and she nailed it. There’s a quiet intensity in her performance, a raw vulnerability that radiates through every note.
“I chose to cover ABBA because they’re one of my biggest inspirations,” she shared. “I grew up listening to ABBA, my mum is obsessed with ABBA, so it was a song that kind of soundtracked my growing up, I guess, and I just always dreamed of doing an ABBA song if I ever got the opportunity to do Like A Version.”
“The older eras of music are the ones that speak to me the most, and where my heart feels happiest when I listen,” she added.
Wehbe also performed her original track “Gentle With Me”, taken from her EP Dark in the Light, which dropped on June 5th.
Described as a project exploring “the idea that light and dark coexist in all of us,” the new EP continues her exploration of emotional duality. “These songs came from moments where I didn’t know if I was breaking or healing — but it was probably both,” Wehbe says. “The EP lives in the in-between: the heart ache beneath the smile, the flicker of hope inside despair, the beauty in contradiction, even the darkness inside of joy.
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“It’s not about choosing sides – it’s about learning to live with both. Light bleeds, shadows breathe, and somewhere in the blur between the two, these songs found me. Maybe they’ll find you too.”
