The Sun Always Shines on T.V.

"The Sun Always Shines on T.V." is a song by Norwegian pop rock band A-ha. The song was written by guitarist Pål Waaktaar. It was released as the third single from their debut studio album "Hunting High and Low" (1985). In some commercial markets the single was not as popular as their previous (debut) single "Take On Me", which had achieved #1 in the United States and several other countries around the world, but in the United Kingdom, and Ireland, it improved upon the #2 charting of "Take On Me", reaching #1 on the UK Singles Chart for two weeks in January 1986, having been released there on 16 December 1985. Its success secured for the band the prestige of having achieved #1 single status in both the primary Anglo-American popular music charts on either side of the Atlantic.
The song was re-released by the band as a live version in 2003 with some minor success in Eastern Europe. It has sold over 5 million copies worldwide.
Origin and recording.
The band's Paul Waaktaar-Savoy said, 
… we wrote "The Sun Always Shines On T.V.," that Andrew Wickham's secretary felt was a hit. She convinced him to make room for it. When we recorded it, we were really sick with influenza. Magne and Morten were lying in the studio on camping beds with high fevers.
Waaktaar-Savoy wrote and composed the complete drum track for this song.
The bass line for the song was performed using a Yamaha DX7. Other synthesizers include PPG Wave, Roland Juno-60 and sampled instruments. The oboe during the song was played by Clare Jarvis.
Release and reception.
"The Sun Always Shines on T.V." was released in autumn 1985, becoming the second successful single from "Hunting High and Low" and one of the band's most recognisable and popular songs. The song peaked at number 20 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart. It also went Top 5 in Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, as well as in the band's home country of Norway. The single reached number one in Ireland and on the British Singles Chart which was a higher chart position there than for "Take On Me".
Tim DeGravine of Allmusic later wrote of the song, 
"The Sun Always Shines on T.V." is just as thrilling ["as "Take on Me""]. Starting as a sad ballad, it explodes into something much more, as chugging guitars and operatic synths keep pace with Harket's evocative vocal stylings. If ever a 1980s song qualified as Wall of Sound, "The Sun Always Shines on T.V." would be it.
There are two versions of the extended mix. The first UK release is 7:09, it starts with a slow piano intro, while the second one is the commonly known remix by Steve Thompson.
Music video.
The music video for "The Sun Always Shines on T.V." was directed by Steve Barron and was shot on location over three days early October 1985 at Udney Hall Gardens and the Victorian Gothic Church of Saint Alban the Martyr, both situated in Teddington, Richmond upon Thames, in England.
The video opens with a short sequence which forms an epilogue to the video for "Take On Me", the band's previous single, continuing with the use of rotoscoped animation. The young lovers (played by Morten Harket and Bunty Bailey), having survived the ordeal of the story in the first video, now face one another in the woods at night. Suddenly the young man begins physically reverting to his original animated state seen in the "Take on Me" video. The young woman, distressed, realizes that he cannot remain in her world. In pain, he flees the scene into the distance back to his comic-book world, and she is left behind. The camera rises away from her and closing credits roll in the style of the end of a Hollywood classic film, stating "The End / A Warner Bros. First National Picture", followed by an animated television graphic which reads "you are watching channel 3" and the A-ha logo.
The main sequence of the video consists of A-ha performing "The Sun Always Shines on T.V.", supplemented by session drummer Lindsay Elliott, and a bass player, inside a Gothic church, filmed mainly in black-and-white with splashes of pastel coloring. Spectating at the performance is a dense crowd throughout the church of bare mannequins, some clothed in formal concert dress holding musical instruments to represent the song's classical instrumentation arrangement. The video ends with A-ha being cut out from the background and becoming a still frame.
The music video for the band's next single, "Train of Thought", would pick up from this cue shot, making a visual & story trilogy of "Take On Me", "The Sun Always Shines on T.V." and "Train of Thought".
Awards.
At the 1986 MTV Video Music Awards the video won in the category Best Editing in a Video (Editor: David Yardley) and "Best Cinematography in a Video" (Director of Photography: Oliver Stapleton). It also received a nomination for "Best Art Direction in a Video" (Art Director: Stefan Roman).
Notable live performances.
A-ha performed this song at the Nobel Peace Prize concert in 1998 alongside the new song "Summer Moved On."
A live version of "The Sun Always Shines on T.V." was the only single released from the 2003 A-ha album "How Can I Sleep With Your Voice In My Head", the music video for it being directed by Pal Waaktaar's wife Lauren Savoy.
Influences.
U2 stated that "The Sun Always Shines on T.V." heavily influenced the composition of their 2000 single release, "Beautiful Day." Bono paid tribute to it by combining the two songs together at a concert in Oslo, Norway, in 2005.
Diva version.
A cover version of "The Sun Always Shines on T.V." was released in 1994 as the debut single by Norwegian Eurodance group , consisting of the singers Helene Sommer and Elene Nyborg. It reached number 9 on the charts in Norway. In 1995 it reached number 53 on the charts in UK. A music video was made to promote the song, directed by Lauren Waaktaar-Savoy. The video was banned by Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation NRK; they found the video too controversial. A new video was made for the UK version. This version received remixes from the Perfecto crew (Paul Oakenfold and Steve Osborne).
Critical reception.
"Music & Media" commented, "What happened to Morton Harket's voice? Suddenly you notice it's a girlie cover of the A-Ha hit. The vocal arrangements might be similar, but the duo/dance context makes the difference." British magazine "Music Week" rated it 3/5, adding, "This clubby cover and remix of A-Ha's 1985 hit (huge in the duo's native Norway) could well take off here. Pure and peachy Europop." Alan Jones wrote, "Perfecto continues its chart charge with an unlikely remake of A-Ha's hit The Sun Always Shines On TV by Diva. You could be forgiven for expecting a storming vocal, but Diva's sweet and soft vocal quality works very well with the muscular, bass-driven Perfecto mixes." James Hamilton from the magazine's "RM" Dance Update described it as a "breathily cooed and sighed remake". "Muzik" gave it 4 out of 5, declaring it as "a big pop smash for the summer."