Take On Me
"Take On Me" is a song by the Norwegian synth-pop band a-ha. The original version, recorded in 1984 and released in October of that year, was produced by Tony Mansfield and remixed by John Ratcliff. The 1985 international hit version was produced by Alan Tarney for the group's debut studio album, Hunting High and Low. The recording combines synth-pop with a varied instrumentation, including acoustic guitars, keyboards, and drums.
The original 1984 version "Take On Me" failed to chart in the United Kingdom, as did the second version in the first of its two 1985 releases. The second of those 1985 releases charted in September 1985, reaching number two on the UK Singles Chart in October. In the United States in October 1985, the single topped Billboard's Hot 100, bolstered by the wide exposure on MTV of director Steve Barron's innovative music video featuring the band in a live-action pencil-sketch animation sequence. The video won six awards and was nominated for two others at the 1986 MTV Video Music Awards.
Background
"Take On Me" originated from Pål Waaktaar's and Magne Furuholmen's previous band Bridges, who first composed a number called "Miss Eerie" when they were 15 and 16 years old, but felt too much like a bubblegum ad. Initially the band felt the riff was too pop-oriented for their band, thus the first version of the song was more "punky" in an attempt to offset the riff. The first take of the song was inspired in part by Doors member Ray Manzarek and his "almost mathematical but very melodic, structured way of playing". Waaktaar considered the song too poppy for their intended dark style, but Furuholmen recalled thinking it was "quite catchy".Soon after Bridges disbanded, Waaktaar and Furuholmen relocated to London to try to break into the music industry there, but after six months they returned to Norway. They were joined by their school friend, singer Morten Harket, who heard the song and said the keyboard riff had the character of a universal hit sound. The three began working on demos, including a new version of the song, which was renamed "Lesson One" before it evolved into "Take On Me". In January 1983, A-ha returned to London in search of a recording contract. They intended the song to show off Harket's vocal range, which led to his vocals "doing this spiralling thing".
Recording and production
The band moved into an apartment in London and began contacting record companies and publishing houses. After a few meetings with various A&R personnel, they signed with the publishing house Lionheart. A-ha returned to Norway to earn some money; when they returned to London, they left Lionheart out of frustration. They decided to record new demos, and chose the studio of musician and producer John Ratcliff, intending to re-record five songs. The band signed with Ratcliff, who introduced them to manager Terry Slater. With this encouragement, the band managed to complete some songs, including "Take On Me". After a few meetings, Slater signed them with Warner Bros. Records UK.The trio met with producer Tony Mansfield, an expert in the use of the Fairlight CMI, who mixed the demos with electronic instrumentation. The sound was not what A-ha had hoped to achieve, and the album was remixed again. The band rushed to release "Take On Me" as a single in the United Kingdom but the single only charted at 137, the lowest-charted of all A-ha songs. After this, Warner Brothers' main office in the United States decided to invest in the band, and gave them the opportunity to re-record the song.
The instrumentation included a Yamaha DX7 and PPG Wave, with Furuholmen playing the main melody on a Roland Juno-60. A LinnDrum drum machine was used on the second and third releases, with acoustic cymbals and hi-hat overdubbed. Harket sang the lead vocal using a Neumann U 47 microphone as well as a Neve microphone pre-amp and Neve equaliser.
In 2020, former Warner Brothers UK and Reprise executive Andrew Wickham appeared in A-ha's official anniversary documentary A-ha: The Making of Take On Me, to explain how the song's success was due to several parties realising the band's true value. He detailed how the song finally became the worldwide smash hit still widely recognised today. In 1984, he was the international vice-president for Warner Bros Records America, and their A&R man in London. He said, "I got a call from Terry Slater... I couldn't believe my ears when I heard Morten Harket sing. I thought, how can somebody who looks like a film star sound like Roy Orbison? I thought, this is unbelievable."
Wickham immediately signed A-ha to Warner Brothers America, after learning several previous attempts had failed to make "Take On Me" a commercial success. The next release was not successful either and featured a very ordinary performance video. He authorised considerable investment in the band: on Slater's recommendation, producer Alan Tarney was commissioned to refine the song. The new recording achieved a cleaner and more soaring sound and a coda section instead of the earlier quick fade-out; the song was soon completed and re-released in the UK, but the record label's office in London gave them little support, and the single flopped for the second time.
Wickham placed A-ha on high priority and applied a lateral strategy with further investment. Ayeroff's co-worker John Beug suggested they should base the video on a student animated short he had seen, called "Commuter", by Michael Patterson and Candace Reckinger. Director Steve Barron shot and edited the video, where some of the segments were then drawn over by Patterson, while Reckinger did the mattes, creating a revolutionary rotoscope animated music video which took six months in total to make. The single was released in the US one month after the music video, and immediately appeared in the Billboard Hot 100 and was a worldwide smash, reaching No. 1 in numerous countries.
AllMusic journalist Tim DiGravina described "Take On Me" as "a new wave classic laced with rushing keyboards, made emotionally resonant thanks to Morten Harket's touching vocal delicacy."
Composition
"Take On Me" is a synth-pop song that includes acoustic and electric guitars and keyboards, written at a tempo of 169 beats per minute. The lyrics are a plea for love and constructed in a verse–chorus form with a bridge before the final chorus. The song is written in the key of A major with a chord progression of Bm7–E–A–D–E in the verse, A–C♯m7/G♯–F♯m–D in the chorus, and C♯m–G–C♯m–G–Bm–E in the bridge. Harket demonstrates a vocal range of over two and a half octaves. He sings the lowest pitch in the song, A2, at the beginning of the chorus, on the first syllable of the phrase "Take On Me". As the chorus progresses, Harket's voice hits ever higher notes, reaching a falsetto and hitting the song's highest note, E5, at the end. Rolling Stone has thus noted the song as "having one of the hardest-to-sing choruses in pop history". A mix of a drum machine, the LinnDrum, acoustic guitars, and electronic instrumentation serves as the song's backing track.Music videos
First video
The first release of "Take On Me" in 1984 includes a completely different recording; this mix was featured in the first video, which shows the band singing with a blue background.Second video
The second video, directed by film director Steve Barron, is the far more widely recognised video for the song. It was filmed in 1985 at Kim's cafe, which is located on the corner of Wandsworth Road and Pensbury Place in Wandsworth, southwest London, and on a sound stage in London. The cafe scenes feature the English actress Bunty Bailey, who became a-ha singer Morton Harket's girlfriend following the shoot. The video used a pencil-sketch animation and live-action combination called rotoscoping, in which the live-action footage is traced using a frame-by-frame process to give the characters realistic movements. Approximately 3,000 frames were rotoscoped, which took 16 weeks to complete. The idea of the video was suggested by Warner Bros. executive Jeff Ayeroff, who was pivotal in making "Take on Me" a globally recognised music hit.The music video was remastered to 2160p in 2019 from the original 35mm film and released on YouTube, while retaining its original URL and upload date of 6 January 2010. The remaster also contains new sound effects not featured on the original clip. On 17 February 2020, the music video reached one billion views on YouTube. Prior to that date, only four songs from the 20th century had reached that mark —making "Take On Me" the fifth video from that time period to do so, and the first Scandinavian act to achieve this. By 20 September 2024, the music video had received 2 billion views on YouTube, making it the first music video from the 1980s to achieve this milestone.
In 2019, Morten Harket and Bunty Bailey reunited at the cafe in Wandsworth where part of the video was shot, 34 years after the video was made.
Plot
The video's main theme is a romantic fantasy narrative. It begins with a montage of pencil drawings in a comic-book style representing motorcycle sidecar racing, in which the hero is pursued by two opponents.In a café, a young woman is reading the comic book depicting the race. As she reads, the waitress brings her coffee and the bill. The comic's hero, after winning the race, seemingly winks at the woman from the page. His pencil-drawn hand suddenly reaches out of the comic book, inviting the woman into it.
Once inside, she too appears in the pencil-drawn form as he sings to her and introduces her to his black-and-white world which features a sort of looking-glass portal where people and objects look real on one side and pencil-drawn on the other.
Back in the café, the waitress returns to find the woman missing. Believing the customer left without paying the bill, she angrily crumples the comic book and throws it into a bin. This causes the hero's two opposing racers to reappear as villains, one of them armed with a large pipe wrench. The racers smash the looking glass with the pipe wrench, trapping the woman in the comic book. The hero punches one of the thugs aside and retreats with the woman into a maze of paper. Arriving at a dead end, he tears a hole in the paper wall so that the woman can escape. He remains in the comic book as the opposing racers menacingly close in on him. The woman, now back in the real world and found lying beside the trash bin to the surprise and confusion of café guests and staff, retrieves the comic from the bin and runs home.
She attempts to smooth out the creases of the crumpled pages in order to read what happens next. The next panel shows the hero, lying seemingly lifeless, and the woman begins to cry. However, he then wakes up and tries to break out of his comic-book frames. At the same time, his image appears in the woman's hallway, seemingly torn between real and comic form, hurling himself repeatedly left-and-right against the walls; eventually falling to the floor in his attempts to shatter his two-dimensional barrier. He escapes from the comic book by becoming human, and as he stands up he breaks into a smile. The woman also smiles as she rushes towards him.
The story is concluded in the opening of "The Sun Always Shines on T.V." music video.