Happy 35th: a-ha, “Hunting High and Low”

35 years ago this month, a-ha released the title track from their debut album as the fourth and final single from the LP.

Written by Pål Waaktaar and originally produced by Tony Mansfield, the single version of “Hunting High and Low” was remixed and an orchestra was added, hence the additional production credit for Alan Talmy.

For the video, the band once again corralled Steve Barron, the man behind “Take on Me,” to direct, and the end result found him taking frontman Morten Harket and having him transform – or morph, if you will – into various animals, among them an eagle, a lion, and a great white shark. Can we blame this on the short-lived NBC series Manimal? Hopefully so, since that’s what we’re doing, whether it’s true or not...

Although “Hunting High and Low” failed to even so much as dent the Billboard Hot 100, it only served to further cement a-ha’s success elsewhere, hitting the top-10 of the UK, Irish, French, Danish, Italian, and Norwegian charts, even going gold in France.