a-ha has had an interesting career trajectory. After being starving artists for a few years, they exploded onto the world music scene with their debut album Hunting High And Low in 1985, enjoying a few very successful years, even providing a James Bond theme song in the process. They then seemed to go underground for a bit, went on hiatus, and had a comeback in the 2000s which saw them play to full houses around the world again. They have gone on hiatus and returned a few times since then. In some ways, they have managed to keep one foot in pop stardom, with the other one safely planted in cult fandom.
As the co-host for a podcast about the guitar-driven, Celtic-tinged, Scottish rock band Big Country, it was very interesting to see the sheer amount of feedback and questions I received personally after having spoken about a-ha on the podcast for five minutes. I received a listener question and was happy to do the equivalent of an elevator pitch, covering their musical development along with a sweeping career overview peppered with random facts and opinions.
I’ve often gotten the impression that a lot of people out there are somewhat familiar with the band, if not too deeply. Often they will be curious enough that a small push is all they need to explore a bit more. That segment seemed to be that push for a lot of people, and the amount of interest that came out of that was quite unexpected – it is a Big Country podcast after all – but very cool to see.
I have always maintained that most people’s impression of a-ha is wildly inaccurate, mostly due to “that” song. Take On Me has in equal measures been the song that gave them an extended career, and the song that became a millstone around their neck. It would forever brand them as a 1980s synth pop band. That song may scream just that, but that is such an unfitting tag to put on their overall career that it is ridiculous.
That song was primarily a hit in the US, no doubt thanks to MTV and “that” music video. In many other markets, including UK, the song that went to #1 in the charts was actually The Sun Always Shines On TV. I’ve always thought of that as a significantly more interesting song.
No matter which song is your favourite from their first album Hunting High And Low (released 28 October 1985), that entire album does sound like the decade it was recorded in. You don’t need to dig far beyond their signature song (even on that first album) to hear that there is way more going on than happy-go-lucky pop songs. In fact, over the course of their career, you can count those type of songs on one hand. Their unique slices of melancholic, introspective, genre-defying gems would stray quite a lot from their most known track, yet they always sounded like themselves.
Here I Stand And Face The Rain is the final song on the HHAL album, written by guitarist and key songwriter Pål (Paul) Waaktaar. By the time you get to that song, you have been taken through quite a musical palate – the hits, solid pop moments, sweeping ballads, acoustic and naked songs, melancholic pieces, and soaring epics. The album has a bit of everything, and it closes with a song that almost encapsulates all the previous expressions into one. It ends up being one of the strongest songs on the album, but does that equal single/hit material?
The title of the song says it all – this is a melancholic slice of heart-on-your-sleeve angst, combined with what initially is a quiet pop song that at some point takes off, working its way towards a soaring epic finale with Morten Harket providing some chilling vocal chorus lines over the final orchestral section. The build that the song has is sensational, but it never loses that “alone in the rain” feeling.
The interesting thing about this song is that it was written in an environment almost directly opposite to what it is describing. When a-ha finally got signed after years of trying and got their first advance, two of the guys – namely Paul and Morten – spent some of that money going away for a break. They had been working non-stop for years and knew it would be good to catch their breaths before going into the studio to record their first album.
They ended up going on a charter trip to Tenerife – the largest of the seven populated Canary Islands – and soaked up some rays for two solid weeks. Right there, under the baking sun, is where Paul got ideas and started working on the song. They hadn’t seen a rain cloud for days, but the ideas definitely included them.
“I remember very well that Morten was in the room with me when I was working on it,” Paul later said. “He tried to sing along to what I was doing, which made me panic as I could feel the song coming and I didn’t want him to ruin it. I had to tell him to be quiet.”
The song is very typical Paul, both in the melody structure and mood – and the lyrics. As anyone following a-ha would know, many of his early songs would revolve around the woman he was madly in love with, but who lived in the US at a time when he was based in England.
I’ll be quick to add that the story ends well (Paul would marry Lauren Savoy in 1994 after a long courtship), but in the meantime many of the songs on the first few albums deal with separation anxiety, missing someone, coping poorly with the distance between them, and just wondering how things would work out. This would lead to quite a few heart-wrenching lyrics and melodies structured like anything from dramatic epics to melancholic night songs.
The person in this song is at a crossroads, feeling more alone than ever. Things are changing, but for better or worse?
Help me
I need your love
Don’t walk away
The dark scares me so
We’re nothing apart
Let’s stay friends forever
Forever
Here I stand and face the rain
I know that nothing’s gonna be the same again
I fear for what tomorrow brings
Knowing that the song is autobiographical makes what Paul put into it even more fascinating. Rather than going for “high poetry” the words are naked and raw, and all the more powerful for it. As usual, the emotion and melancholy in the music, along with Morten’s exceptional vocal, really puts the needed emotions into the words, making the song incredibly touching and heartfelt.
Listening to the demo version on the deluxe boxed set of HHAL is also interesting, at least if you can get past the dated drum machine. The song is largely the same, but it is missing the epic play-out.
The same box also contains an early mix of the song where the play-out is in place. Interestingly, the music fades before the vocal, leaving Morten’s soaring vocals standing alone at the very end. That works incredibly well and is a chilling way to end the song – the voice which sang about the fear of being alone is suddenly just that. I imagine they probably did not want to end the album on such a dramatic note, and they found a good balance in the great, epic ending of the final album version. But I must admit that the ending of the early mix has more impact on me personally.
Although the song didn’t end up being a single, it has always been a fan favourite. Unfortunately, it was never really played much live. They played a very guitar-driven rock version of it at a point in the early 90s (video example included below), and finally picked it up again quite recently on the final part of the Cast In Steel tour last year.
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