Slope of Hope Blog Posts

Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.

Marvelously Depressing

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I’m sure pretty much all of you have seen a-ha’s “Take On Me” video, which enjoys half a billion views on YouTube alone. That was the golden age of music videos (which I was lucky enough to live through).

I stumbled upon the video below, in which lead singer Morten Harket does the same song “unplugged”. First off, the guy’s voice has held up amazingly well. I remember watching a video of Crash Test Dummies a few years after they were big, and holy Lord, Brad Roberts’ voice has gone downhill so bad it just broke my heart. Anyway, check this out:

I’m stuck by several things:

  • How good the lyrics are; it’s easy to lose that with the original recording;
  • What a different feel the song has when sung at this pace and with these emotions;
  • How depressing it is to see a young icon from the 80s as a man approaching 60. But I’m eventually going to grasp the concept that time indeed does march on – – slowly learning that life is OK.