a-ha – Take On Me

Single: Take On Me
Album: Hunting High and Low
Released 19 October 1984

A-ha wrote and recorded the first version of this song in 1982 with the title “Lesson One” – it had different lyrics but contained the basic keyboard riff. In 1983, the song got the attention of industry veteran Terry Slater, who became their manager and helped them secure a contract with Warner Bros. Records later that year.

In early 1984, they re-wrote the song as “Take On Me” and recorded it with producer Tony Mansfield. Released as a single only in Europe, it went to #3 in their native Norway, but didn’t chart anywhere else, flopping particularly hard in the UK. A video was made for this version that was remarkably undistinguished compared with the one that came after.

Thanks to an innovative video that takes place in a comic book, “Take On Me” gives the Norwegian group a-ha a #1 hit in America on October 19, 1985. This is a re-release version.

Earlier versions of “Take On Me” flopped hard, but when Warner Bros’ exec Jeff Ayeroff got a look at the band, he knew their swoonworthy looks were made for MTV and commissioned a music video to promote a more radio friendly version of the tune.

The group teamed up with director Steve Barron, who helmed Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean,” for a short-form piece that mixed live action with rotoscoping illustration—never before used in a music video. “It was a dream to work with talent like that,” Waaktaar-Savoy says of Barron. “Normally, videos took a week of shooting in a hangar. But for this, we did a whole day that was only to make the comic magazine. Then four months spent doing hand-drawn drawings. It was very thorough stuff.” That might be an understatement: Illustrator Mike Patterson came up with more than 3,000 sketches for the final clip.

A-ha were a Norwegian trio formed by Morten Harket (vocals), Pal Waaktaar (guitar) and Mags Furuholmen (keyboards). They moved to London in January 1983 and signed to Warners later in the year. Furuholmen chose their name as it was a simple exclamation known all over the world.

With this hit, a-ha became the first Norwegian band to have #1 in USA.

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a-ha - Take On Me

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