Plot Summary

Filmed against the stark coastal landscapes of Cádiz, Spain, the video places a-ha in a sun-bleached, dreamlike world of empty beaches, open roads, and desert-like terrain. Morten Harket performs beside a vintage Mercury Cougar while Pål Waaktaar-Savoy and Magne Furuholmen appear in separate, isolated settings. Slow-motion imagery, unusual visual effects, and the trio’s solitary presence reinforce the song’s themes of separation, passing seasons, and a relationship—or an era—that has already slipped away.

Factoids & Trivia

Swedish director Adam Berg, who later made the Netflix feature Black Crab, directed the video. It was one of his early music-video projects.

The shoot took place in Cádiz, Andalusia, over four consecutive days, from March 3–6, 2000. Despite the summery imagery, Spanish coverage described the conditions as unusually cold.

Morten’s car is a Mercury Cougar, an American classic that gives the otherwise European coastal setting a slightly cinematic, road-movie quality. The car is most prominently featured in the beach performance scenes.

“Summer Moved On” marked a-ha’s return after more than six years away from the recording scene. Pål Waaktaar-Savoy wrote it for the band’s 1998 appearance at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert, and the strong response to that performance helped motivate the group’s full reunion.

The song’s most famous technical detail belongs to Morten Harket: he sustains a note for approximately 20.2 seconds—eight measures—which was widely reported as a European record for a top-40 pop song.

The video was issued as a CD-ROM video track with releases connected to Minor Earth Major Sky, and it was also included on later a-ha video compilations and the Live at Vallhall: Homecoming DVD package.