Remembering a-ha’s “Take on Me”

It is still one of the most powerful music videos I have ever seen.

A woman sees a comic strip, starts reading it, and falls in love with the main character as she falls into the strip and meets the man. Suddenly some men are after them and they start running to escape. He then creates an escape hatch for her that she goes through. In the real world, she was in a restaurant. The owner sees the seemingly abandoned comic strip on the table where she was sitting, crumples it up and takes it out with the day’s trash. Out in the alley, she appears in the trash can, human once more. She grabs the crumpled up papers, goes to a safe spot and uncrumples them. She reads to the end and does not see what happened to the mystery man.

Suddenly he appears behind her, half man half cartoon, slamming his body back and forth into walls, trying to become all human.

As the video ends, he succeeds, and she is holding him drenched in sweat but smiling. He is now free.

Even close to 40 years later, that video still gets my heart racing and brings a tear to my eye.

Today, I was covering a workshop and the materials for it were created by “A-Ha Publishing”.

It made me think of the band a-ha, who many consider a one-hit wonder, although that is not quite true

In any case, what a hit it was and what a ride they had in the ‘80s.

The song
The first I heard of ”Take on Me” was from my friend David Perlich who told me about this great new song, especially the video.

I saw it soon after, and he was so right. A lot of other people agreed because “Take on Me” went all the way to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in October of 1985.

The video went on to win six awards at the 1986 MTV Video Music awards – Best New Artist in Video; Best Concept Video; Most Experimental Video; Best Direction in a Video; Best Special Effects in a Video; and Viewer’s Choice. It was also nominated for Best Group Video and Video of the Year, and for Favourite Pop/Rock Video at the 1986 American Music Awards.

The song also helped a-ha garner a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist.

Not a one-hit wonder
“Take on Me” was on a-ha’s debut album “Hunting High and Low”. The album produced a second top 20 hit, making a-ha more than a one-hit wonder.

That song was called “The Sun Always Shines on TV”, and peaked at number 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 early in 1986.

If you listen closely at the start of the video, it has a piece of “Take on Me” play. The story from the “Take on me" video also concludes in the video for “The Sun Always Shines on TV”.

Beyond that, a-ha is the most successful Norwegian band internationally of all time. One-hit wonders do not achieve that kind of success.

Movie music
To top all that off, a-ha also recorded the theme song for the James Bond movie “The Living Daylights” in 1987, which is a song of the same name. It was released in June of 1987, but did not chart in the United States. It peaked at number one in the band’s home country of Norway; number five in the United Kingdom; and number 48 in Canada.

Live in person
Something I thought I heard back in 1985, but have not been able to prove or disprove, is that a-ha had never performed live together. I was pretty sure that point was made over and over at the time, so much so that I tuned into the 1986 American Music Awards to hear their first live performance.

I recall feeling a bit nervous for them, then being so excited when they did so well.

Maybe it was their first performance in North America or on live TV.

I will keep searching.

As it turns out, I was remembering correctly – partially. It was not the American Music awards, but the Grammys where they performed live for the first time together.

Parting thoughts
I have always been a sucker for a good concept video or album. I enjoy anything that tells a story, especially if it is a love story.

“Take on Me” strikes all the right chords for me. To this day, I believe, it is still one of the best videos of all time.

It still brings a tear to my eye when I see it, and that is proof enough.