| The Smiths – How Soon Is Now? Lyrics | 20 years ago |
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This song is awe-mazing. I love to crank it up when I'm driving alone in the night. I think that it's about scouring for love, and not finding it. It inspired me to write a blog entry. It's at: www.myspace.com/alfredeus The name of the entry is "The Killing Time -- Unwillingly Mine" (named after "The Killing Moon" by Echo and the Bunnymen). |
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| Duran Duran – New Moon on Monday Lyrics | 20 years ago |
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OK... It doesn't get any more Duran Duran than "shake up the picture the lizard mixture". I mean, honestly, whaaa? Um...The video reminds me of a revolution, so, there you go. I read somewhere that they didn't like the video...Maybe it was that French guy. No soup for him. |
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| A-Ha – The Sun Always Shines on TV Lyrics | 21 years ago |
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I cannot believe that the follow-up to “Take On Me”—“The Sun Always Shines On TV”—has no comments. For shame, for shame. The song, I think, surpasses “Take On Me” in many ways, and it’s a-ha at their best. I believe that this song is fully immersive only when one has seen the music video. In it, you see the true conclusion to the glorificent video of “Take On Me”, and should not be missed. If you’re a hopeless romantic like me, you may feel downhearted and even disconsolate. If their storybook love could fail, what chance do we mere mortals have? I highly recommend the downloading of the video(s). The rest of the video is great, too, featuring a host of mannequins positioned in a way that makes them seem as if they were the orchestra of the song (and yet we all know it’s Mags’ handiwork). Also, it boasts a great performance by a-ha, as well as a mystery musician on the drums. Now, the song. I think that the verses are pretty self-explanatory: it’s about inner conflict and the strife to find some form of resolution; it’s about the search for a place where past ailments will be gone. Self-doubt and fear of what one has become pulsates from this song. The remedy? A significant other to wash away the pain, to silently hold him as he bides his time before realizing that everything’s all right. The term “the sun always shines on TV”—that’s something of a puzzling thing, isn’t it? I always took it like this: on television, happy endings abound, but in real life, darkness occurs, as well as reckless acts of happenstance that end in sorrow. But, in the song, Morten is reaching that almost fantasy-like state of euphoria, and all he needs is his better half to caress him, to promise her love to him, even if he doesn’t really understand the magic behind it (“how can it be?”). Wow. I didn’t even know I could analyze the song like that. Kudos for me! Five stars from my iPod, okeday? |
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| A-Ha – The Living Daylights Lyrics | 21 years ago |
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This song was the first song I ever heard by a-ha. As a young fan of the James Bond series (I was like 11), I sought out every Bond outing, and so I inevitably stumbled upon Timothy Dalton's first and best adventure (as well as one of the better missions by Mr. Bond). The main theme for the movie quickly took me, and it became an instant favorite when I purchased the James Bond 30th Anniversary album. The song obviously has roots in the classic James Bond Theme (John Barry co-produced it with a-ha, after all), but it's a-ha through and through. It's haunting and an enigma. It's about facing the darkness of the world and trying to cope with insecurity and being at a loss. "Set my hopes up way too high The living's in the way we die" This single phrase from the song had me vexed for some time. Then I remembered the Sophocles tale "Oedipus Rex," in which it says that one cannot judge another's life until the other had lived his life and was dead. Was he happy, or grief-stricken? One can only know that when the entire tally of days is taken into account, and the state in which people were in when they met their demise, THAT'S how they fared in life. You die the way you lived, essentially. I find that the lyrics posted on this site are erroneous, but I digress. Morten sings about how the world is against him, how nothing can comfort him, how the world seems to revolve, yet everyone still attacks him and him alone. I'm sure we've all felt as if the world has set its sights solely on us sometimes. The phrase "the living daylights" probably stands for the state of utter despair, of complete shock and fear. There has been no other male performer(s) after a-ha who have performed a James Bond theme; it can't be topped. (And "A View To A Kill," the number 1 hit by Duran Duran, was a really tough act to follow.) "Live And Let Die" by Paul McCartney and Wings was good, too, but not as good as this one or the Duran Duran, fare-thee-well, Roger Moore, song. ...Did anyone initially think that the opening hook was a guitar? I saw the video years later (when I became an official a-ha fan a couple of years ago) and only then did I realize that Mags was behind the "guitar" licks with his keyboard/synthesizer. Couldn't they have had Pal do it? Oh, well. My iPod gives this song (saxomophone and all) a hearty 5 stars. (Its extended version gets only a 4 stars since it takes away some of the instrumental factors of the original.) |
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| A-Ha – Take On Me Lyrics | 21 years ago |
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My favorite band, by far, is a-ha (followed by Duran Duran and Tears For Fears), and as an 18 year old college freshman in Miami, Florida, well, my a-ha fandom is a rather solitary ordeal (besides the limited amount of friends I have managed to sway). Nonetheless, I will try my best to comment on as many a-ha songs as possible. My first stab at an a-ha song, rather stereotypically, shall be "Take On Me". I sometimes find myself being ambivalent about this song: it was the song that initially swallowed me whole (but not my "gateway" song to a-ha; that was "The Living Daylights"), but it's also the song that caused a-ha's demise in the U.S. They are the quintessential '80s "one-hit wonders" according to the masses, and that just doesn't sit right with me. Anyway... I always felt this song meant that the guy just wants the girl to "take him on," to give him one chance to prove his worth. "It's no better to be safe than sorry" I find that one line to be the most powerful of the song. One may find oneself to be remiss if they don't take that one chance. What's the worst that can happen? Rejection? At least you know you gave it your all. A wonderful ditty sung by Morten, though I often find that the rhyming scheme leaves something to be desired (away/say/anyway/okay); then again, a-ha's songs don't always focus on the rhyming factor--not a bad thing at all, really. My iPod gives this song 5 stars. |
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