Stay On These Roads: When a-ha Took A New Creative Track

With the touring finally coming to a close later in 1987, concentrated sessions for a-ha’s third album could resume that October, the band choosing to work again with producer Alan Tarney in his preferred Wimbledon, London, studio. Sifting through their collection of unreleased songs, the oldest salvaged for Stay On These Roads also became its final single, You Are The One. A frothy synth-pop confection that made No.13 in the UK when issued as a single in November 1988, its roots lay in a melody worked up by Waaktaar-Savoy and Magne Furuholmen’s pre-a-ha band bridges. The brooding This Alone Is Love also draws some lyrical inspiration from bridges’ second album, Våkenatt, reissued in 2018, and is among the band’s best midtempo ballads.

“Morten had a really beautiful thing going on”

When a-ha first came to London to work on what would become their debut record, Hunting High And Low, they had been based in a suburban studio. While success wouldn’t be instant for the group, it was a period of frenetic creativity, and three of the demos recorded during this time were dusted down for fresh interpretation for Stay On These Roads. The most famous of them, Touchy!, was reportedly written about the perils of hay fever, but a reshaped version got the album back on track after the group released The Blood That Moves The Body as its second single. A serviceable rock shuffler, The Blood That Moves The Body’s release was perhaps more a signal of the band’s growing frustration with the commercial pop of their previous releases than it was a considered decision driven by the marketplace. Issued in June 1988, it became a-ha’s first single to miss the critical UK Top 20, while the effervescent Touchy!, released two months later, peaked at No.10.

The Stay On These Roads campaign had, however, started strongly, with the title track – and first single release – securing a credit for each of the band members. “Morten [Harket, singer] had a really beautiful thing going on with the chorus with Magne,” Waaktaar-Savoy recalled. The single, issued in March 1988, was an immediate smash, making No.1 in the band’s homeland and No.5 in the UK. Often credited as the a-ha Bond theme that never was, it also became the 20th biggest-selling single in Europe that year. Meanwhile, the legal framework around their own bona fide Bond theme was complicated, forcing the band to re-record the track for its inclusion on Stay On These Roads, exorcising some of the cinematic flush of Barry’s treatment in the process (Furuholmen feels the original single version remains the best).

A less predictable route

Tracks that offer insight into the increasingly organic approach of a-ha’s work are the midtempo Hurry Home, the lilting You’ll End Up Crying (taken from those London sessions of a few years earlier) and the sweeping There’s Never A Forever Thing, which, had it been recorded while the group were in the first flushes of their fame, would likely have been flooded by synth orchestration; there remained nods to that classic a-ha sound, but these are warmer, richer affairs. A beautiful ballad written by Waaktaar-Savoy about the death of his future wife’s father, There’s Never A Forever Thing is an album highlight.

Elsewhere, Out Of The Blue Comes Green is the most distinctive track on Stay On These Roads. Its loose tapestry of sounds is weighted by Tarney’s commanding MOR-pop production, but this free-form, melodic meander offered conclusive proof that a-ha’s future would be far less constrained by the rigid commercial constructions of old.

Fans would have to wait a while to see that come to fruition. After three albums recorded at a relentless pace, the group’s fourth album, East Of The Sun, West Of The Moon, wouldn’t hit the shops until almost three years after Stay On These Roads – but the route forward seemed far less predictable. Commercial speedbumps were approaching fast, but the track towards the new millennium would ultimately prove just as creatively rewarding.

Find out which Stay On These Roads cuts remained on track for our pick of the best a-ha songs.