A-ha - Take On Me

Song Exploder

Hrishikesh Hirway

Music

4.8 • 6.4K Ratings

🗓️ 15 October 2025

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

"Take On Me" by A-ha is an iconic hit of the 1980s. It came out in October 1985 with an equally iconic music video that helped define the age of MTV. It hit #1 in the US and in countries all over the world. And it's still massively popular today. It currently has over two and a half billion streams on Spotify. So, with all of that, it's easy to imagine that this was all inevitable. But actually, the song took so many steps and missteps before it became the hit that everybody knows. I talked to Paul Waaktaar-Savoy from A-ha, who wrote the original bones of the song back when he was a teenager in Norway, years before it came out. The song actually came out and flopped TWICE in the UK, before it found a foothold in the US. So for this episode, Paul took me through the whole history of the song, and all the different versions that existed. And he told me how he and his bandmates, Magne Furuholmen and Morten Harket, pushed and pushed and persevered. "Take On Me" was their first single as a band, and it made them the most successful Norwegian pop group of all time.

For more info, visit songexploder.net/a-ha.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made.
0:06.8	I'm Rishi Kesh Hirway.
0:10.7	Check out the award-winning music podcast, Disgraceland, which is kind of like a cross between a true crime podcast and a music podcast.
0:18.9	It tells stories about larger-than-life rock stars and musicians
0:21.9	and the crimes that they've committed, or crimes that have been committed against them.
0:26.7	There are hundreds of stories in their archive, including ones about Amy Winehouse,
0:30.6	J-Z, ACDC, and The Grateful Dead. Every episode is scripted and sound designed, so it feels
0:36.2	like a movie for your ears.
0:39.7	And new episodes are released every Tuesday.
0:42.8	So check out Disgraceland, wherever you get your podcasts.
0:49.2	When I was a kid, the first song we ever thought, this is my favorite song, was Take on Me by AHA.
0:50.7	Looking at it now, it's like, of course that was your favorite song.
0:53.7	It is an undeniable, iconic hit of the 1980s.
0:57.0	It came out in October 1985 with an equally iconic music video that helped define the age of MTV.
1:04.0	It hit number one in the US and in countries all over the world, and it's still massively popular today. It currently has over
1:11.7	two and a half billion streams on Spotify. So with all of that, it's easy to imagine that this
1:18.0	was all inevitable. But actually, the song took so many steps and missteps before it became the hit
1:24.2	that everybody knows. I talked to Paul Wachter Savoy from AHA,
1:28.3	who wrote the original bones of the song back when he was a teenager in Norway,
1:32.3	years before it came out.
1:34.3	The song actually came out and flopped twice in the UK
1:37.3	before it found a foothold in the US.
	...

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