“Take On Me” in the club
Should be a staple.
I spent last Saturday night at a club with two friends. More accurately a club-and-bar complex. It housed several spaces for dancing: the indoor ones the domain of the techno DJs, the outdoor ones dedicated to the pop hits of (we quickly discovered) anywhere from 10-40 years ago. My friend requested Charli XCX, and even though the disgruntled DJ picked the lowest-possible-hanging fruit (“360”), almost everyone vacated the floor immediately. We, as Robyn had foretold a few songs prior, kept dancing on our own.
What was more, despite being separated essentially only by a merry-go-round composed entirely of benches—and despite there being no shortage of hits from the aforementioned period—these two outdoor floors featured quite a bit of overlap in their sets. We heard Miley’s “Flowers” and Taylor’s “Blank Space” twice. Resting at a table equidistant between floors, we heard Bronski Beat’s “Smalltown Boy” (the unofficial song of the summer in Berlin) in one ear and Usher’s “Yeah!” in the other. I don’t think you really understand dissociation until you’ve heard that.
Nevertheless, we persisted. On one of the outdoor floors, I learned that I know about 25% of the lyrics to “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life.” (Probably 25% of the choreography, too, but thankfully nobody was trying that.) Much the way I had learned, the previous night at karaoke, that I knew maybe 30% of the lyrics—and the entrances—to “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” That song is way too chaotic to have been a hit, yet here we are.
But my redeeming moment would arrive with a-ha’s “Take On Me.” Now, this song came into my life only around college, but it has since become one of my very favorite ‘80s tracks. It’s so energetic, and the synths are so beautiful, and the vocal range is one that I can warm up to—an idea every other dancer seemed to have as well: I held a hand to my ear at the end of the chorus to be sure my high E was in tune, because there was a wondrous variety of notes on all sides.
The lyrics don’t make a lot of sense, in fact they embrace the state of not making sense. (For what it’s worth, I knew 100% of them, unlike most of my fellow partygoers.) It's less about thought than about feeling. I can’t say I ever expected to have the privilege of dancing to this song in public, but then it’s so suitable for dancing to. And singing. From what I heard, the rival floor didn’t dare repeat it.
Seventeen hours later I met up with a new friend at a bar that was just getting into its evening swing. I don’t know if the impressively mustachioed bartender heard her call my name in greeting, and he couldn’t have known anything about me, but as we drank our ciders we heard “Cecilia,” “Good Vibrations,” Noah Kahan’s “Stick Season,” and Bon Iver’s “Holocene,” whose chorus ends with “I could see for miles, miles, miles.” This dude got it. I tipped extra.
Podcast rec of the week: this breakdown of the Norwegian mystery masterpiece