Hark! Hark! Hark!

Another relatively dismal Saturday night (house party, sofa, young people, not sure I got round to taking my hat off before buggering off home to curl up in semi-frosted bed - it’s rather worrying how recurrent this story is becoming) bleeds into another sun-kissed Sunday morning at work. And… it’s…

Well, it’s my last one for the foreseeable future, having got gainful employment during the week at long last. The familiar cast of characters on the other end of the phone gets to be some other poor sod’s fun now. Just another eight hours of sitting, looking a bit glazed, ‘typing’ some ’stuff’, further Cornish pasty-induced mental turmoil (helped this week by the microwave being crocked), and all the while wishing I could start a conversation with The Young People here.

Outwardly, I do not exactly give the signs of this. I roll up at ten-ish, try and act like I ain’t smelling as bad as I know I most definitely am, then spend the next few hours staring STRAIGHT AHEAD in case people think I might be interacting with them in some way. Cos when they start thinking that, then complications arise. And I’m not very good with those complications. My voice flings itself into these horrible John Oliver-esque inflections, acting like there’s some massive bloody punchline at the end of everything. I get this sort of disembodied feeling, like I’m watching myself cock everything up even as I’m actually doing it…

I have basically spent more or less all my time at this job trying to act like there is not a part of me that wants to exclaim, very loudly, that, with certain caveats (as in not actually owning anything of theirs beyond their singles collection - the first one, not the recent one), I really, really like a-Ha.

This realisation dawned upon me cos The Young People here like to compare the stuff they have on their iPods, so I thought, “oh, that’ll start conversations. I have stuff on my iPod!”

Then I looked at my iPod, and there, right up the top, Morten y son conjunto. That’ll impress ‘em. RECOMMENCE STARING.

But:

A-HA ARE BRILLIANT!

And this, at the very most, is their third-best single. At the very most. That bit where Morten asks “Do you know what it means to love you?” like he’s just invented Shakespeare? Third-best.

Here’s the thing - with a-Ha, you are seriously asked to believe that they have just invented Shakespeare. Cos oh, they sound like it. This is one of those songs that captures the moment of separation perfectly, a few seconds after it happens - Morten ruefully contemplates, pianos and string sections feel his pain.

And now she’s telling me she’s got to go - UH-HUH-WAY-EE!

Are we reaching too far to suggest it’s that non-specific away that’s the real kicker here, that she has nowhere to go but away from him? Even after he’s been tearing himself to pie…

…ces?

Do you know what it means to love you?

It resolves itself gently, Morten lets it subside eventually (in the video, this happens when a woman stops a man shooting a lion - sometimes, inventing Shakespeare goes a bit far), but those three minutes are exquisite, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Perfectionism is fine, you see, so long as you are actually perfect. Which “Hunting High and Low” is.

Albeit that “Take on Me” and “The Sun Always Shines on TV” are more perfect.