"Take on Me" is a single by Norwegian pop band A-ha. Written by the band members, the song was produced by Alan Tarney for the group's first studio album Hunting High and Low, released in 1985. The song combines synthpop with a varied instrumentation that includes acoustic guitars, keyboards, and drums.

The original "Take on Me" was recorded in 1984, and took three releases to chart in the United Kingdom, reaching number two on the UK Singles Chart in November 1985. In the United States, the song reached the top position of the Billboard Hot 100 in October 1985, due in no small part to the wide exposure of its memorable and cutting-edge music video on MTV, directed by Steve Barron. The video features the band in a pencil-sketch animation called rotoscoping, combined with live action. The video won six awards, and was nominated for two others at the 1986 MTV Video Music Awards.

Pål Waaktaar and Magne Furuholmen began their music careers playing in a band called Bridges, together with Viggo Bondi and Øystein Jevanord. In 1981 the band produced Fakkeltog (Torch-light parade), an LP for which all of the music was composed by the group themselves, most of it being written by Waaktaar. Soon after, Bridges disbanded. Waaktaar and Furuholmen relocated to London to try their hand in the music industry there, but after six months of disappointment they returned to Norway. The duo decided to try to get Morten Harket to join them as lead singer. At the time, Harket was singing in a band called Souldier Blue, but he felt that his band was stagnating, and decided to join Waaktaar and Furuholmen. They stayed together for six months, writing some songs and working on demo tapes, including "Lesson One," the song that eventually became "Take on Me." In January 1983 the trio returned to London in search of recording a contract.