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.)
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.)