written by Magne Furuholmen, Morten Harket and Pål Waaktaar

produced by John Ratcliff and Alan Tarney

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Back on up to Scandinavia for our next inclusion here—and

notoriously acclaimed one-hit wonder (in the non-European

continents)—specifically Oslo, Norway. The trio of Morten Harket

(singer), Magne Furuholmen (keyboardist/guitarist) and Paul (Pål)

Waaktaar (guitarist) formed a-ha circa ’82, named after a song Pål had written: short, concise, to the point, easy for worldwide Anglos and non-Norwegian speakers to say... and uniquely stylized with lower-case letters.

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Now, before we get to the video—and we will—a bit of background on the band’s multiple country-#1 monster hit. With Pål and Magne’s original band Bridges, they came up with a sort of a hybrid song called “Miss Eerie”/“Panorama,” which eventually evolved, with an overly poppy synthesizer riff, into a ditty they called “Take On Me.” Sometimes... sometimes it is easier than other times to determine when an artist/band’s native language is not English, but hey, at least they got it right in the next chorus segment. And unless you’re a grammar cop-zi, who really cares... (Slight side note: lest you wonder just what they were trying to get at, the phrase “take on me,” translated back and forth to native Nordic languages, in their tongues, indicates “touch me.” A few years later, my beloved Roxette, in a Look Sharp! song called “Chances,” uses the same phrase in its own chorus.)

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The song had to go through just another evolution or two through the remaining early ’80s, during which time Magne and Pål were joined by hunky vocalist Morten Harket. After one minor recording contract that took them nowhere, lady luck stepped in to lend them a hand, uniting them with producer John Ratcliff and manager Terry Slater, winning them a deal with Warner Bros. Records.

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Like a surprising amount of hit songs, “Take On Me” did not seem destined for greatness as a sort of non-album experimental single in 1984, released originally by MCA Records—where it peaked at #3 in Norway, but only #137 on one other chart (UK). A bit more mixing and backing by Warner Bros. later, it was time for take two of the song... to “take on” it again, so to speak. As a preview of their debut record Hunting High And Low, the updated “Take On Me” popped out as a single in fall—October 19th—’84. The entire album itself wouldn’t be released until another entire year—and after its second single as well—in October 1985.

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As the song began burning up the charts, a-ha worked up a primitive music video for the earlier primitive version of the song. With something now like what they had in mind, on board came British director Steve Barron to helm a new upgraded video, for “Take On Me”’s upgraded mix. (Mr. Barron came from the world of music video directing, having stepped behind the camera for those of Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean,” The Human League’s “Don’t You Want Me,” Bryan Adams’ “Run To You,” etc., around the time he directed his first feature film, Electric Dreams. (His second would be 1990’s first live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie.))

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The *official* video benevolently lures us in with the simple scene of a young woman at a diner—played by Brit model Therese “Bunty” Bailey—having a coffee and reading her comic book. Before her eyes, said comic book comes magically to life. The video from here becomes an adventure in roto-scoping, as our heroine finds herself drawn into the comic, enchanted by singing hero Morten. The fantasy takes form as a brilliant hybrid of an animated pencil sketch blended into live-action. Even by this point in music video history, where MTV had existed for three years, and many acts had already experimented with some wild video ideas and effects, “Take On Me” nonetheless wowed viewers with something beautifully new, and insanely innovative. The action is taken up another level as the comic book-locked hero and heroine find themselves chased by wrench-wielding thugs, compelled to flee for their lives. Narrowly evading them, the heroine finds herself back in the diner... in the garbage... as having disappeared into the comic book, the waitress believes she’s skipped out on the check and trashes her comic. Finally later on back at home, she manages to get Morten back, after a short struggle to free himself from the book. Final touch of the video: as opposed to the studio album recording—which fades out repeating the chorus—the video concludes with the slowed synth-riff, sans fade. Without question, this otherwise unknown Norway trio owes a great deal of their success to MTV.

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(From Wikipedia’s “Take On Me” page: “The music video was remastered to 2160p (4K) in 2019 from the original 35mm film and released on YouTube, while retaining its original URL and upload date of January 6, 2010. On 17 February 2020, the music video reached one billion views on YouTube. Prior to that date, only four songs from the entire 20th century had reached that elusive mark (“November Rain” and “Sweet Child o’ Mine” by Guns N’ Roses, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana, and “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen) making “Take On Me” the fifth video from that time period ever to do so, and the first Scandinavian act to achieve this.”)

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Have notes to add? Let me know!

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YT:

full version

music video

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a-ha’s official website

Lyrics

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Talking away / I don’t know what I’m to say / I’ll say it anyway / Today is another day to find you / Shying away / I’ll be coming for your love, okay? / Take on me (take on me) / Take me on (take on me) / I’ll be gone / In a day or two / So, needless to say / Of odds and ends, but I’ll be / Stumbling away / Slowly learning that life is okay / Say after me / It’s no better to be safe than sorry / x1 / Oh, things that you say, yeah / Is it life or just to play / My worries away / You’re all the things I’ve got to remember / You’re shying away / I’ll be coming for you anyway / Take on me (take on me) / Take me on (take on me) / I’ll be gone / In a day / (Take on me) (take on me) / (Take me on) (take on me) / I’ll be gone (take on me) (take on me) / In a day (take me on) (take on me) / (Take on me) (take on me) / (Take me on) (take on me) / (Take on me)/[repeat and fade]

first release: Take On Me (single) (1984/10/19)

second/album release: Hunting High And Low (1985/10/28)