I recently had a disquieting revelation, the kind that flips your perceptions.
Like many people my age, I was transfixed by A-ha’s song (more accurately, the accompanying video) “Take on Me.” If you were watching MTV in 1985/86, this video was on constantly. With the flipping from live action to monochrome rotoscoping, with a real plot, this was one of the quintessential videos of those glory years “when MTV played music.”
I probably heard the song dozens of times in the 1980s, and more than a few times afterwards. It’s no surprise that such a catchy tune has legs. I’m partial to the Reel Big Fish version, which replaces the original’s cool Norwegian synth-pop with unbridled ska energy. A-ha’s video for the song remains popular; as of this writing it has over two billion views on YouTube.
As earnest as Morten Harket’s vocals were, they weren’t always easily to make out. I got the general gist of the song, but it wasn’t until recently that I had any clue what he was actually singing after “I’ll be gone.” A few years ago I found out it was “a day or two,” and I just thought, yeah, that tracks.
But there was one lyric that I thought I understood. It turns out I didn’t. At the end of the second verse, just as he and the unnamed female protagonist are standing on opposite side of the anti-rotoscoping mirror, Harket sings (or so I thought) “it’s so better to be safe than sorry.”
Granted, that’s not the kind of thing you would hear someone say in real life, but even at that age I appreciated that the lyrics were a bit…stylized. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say, “take on me,” and that’s the title of the song, so I figured that the band was a little loose with its usage. It made complete sense that this would be the lyrics.
Thanks to my understanding of that line, what I took from the song—and the video—is that prudence is a good choice. Did this influence my decided tendency towards risk aversion? Maybe. Look at it from my perspective. Here’s this guy who seems to have a lot going on. He’s a great motorcycle racer. Decent right cross He’s able to impress a woman who he’s never met enough that she takes his invitation to join him in a comic book. And he is able to both come back from the dead (or at the very least, a severe beating leading to unconsciousness) and translate himself from a comic book into the real world. He’s so cool, he even hits the ground on two opposite sides of the hall when he falls down at the end.
So you can forgive much younger me for assuming that if this guy says it’s so better to be safe than sorry, I’d best take that advice and govern my affairs accordingly And I’m bopping my way through life, totally secure that I understood Harket perfectly, until about a week ago, the bottom dropped out.
The correct lyrics are “it’s no better to be safe than sorry.” The exact opposite of what I thought.
In retrospect, “no” instead of “so” makes much more sense than what I thought. It was there in front of me the whole time. After all, Harket’s character is a motorcycle racer—hardly a risk-averse profession. The female lead impulsively dines and dashing via being pulled into a comic book. This isn’t exactly the kind of behavior you would expect from folks who play it safe.
Well that took a few paragraphs more than I anticipated. I hope you enjoyed the ride. But all this has a point that can apply to anyone, not just those who have misheard 40-year-old lyrics clarified for them, upending their worldview, because misunderstanding someone else is a sad, all-too-common reality of interpersonal communication.
In addition to being the premise of 92 percent of sitcom episodes from the late 1970s/early 1980s (I’m looking right at you, Three’s Company), misunderstanding can lead to big problems both at work and home. I’ll stick with the professional context here (because what could be more buttoned-down professional than Three’s Company references?). When combined with siloing and our tendencies towards conflict aversion rather than resolution, a simple misunderstanding can snowball into a near-intractable conflict involving entire groups of people. And it can lead to profound personal difficulties; I can think of a few people who have made major decisions that didn’t necessarily leave them better off because of a misunderstanding.
Any communication has the potential for noise, for signal loss, for misunderstanding. Luckily, there is an easy (though sometimes socially awkward) antidote to misunderstanding: closing the loop.
Closed loop communication, according to authors Irim Salik and John V. Ashurst, “including a call-out, is based on standardized terminology and procedures to ensure safe communication.”* They describe a three-step process:
- Transmitter communicate a message to the intended receiver
- Receiver accepts the message with explicit verbal acknowledgement
- Original receiver verifies the message was correctly received, closing the loop
The authors cite use of CLC in aviation and medicine—two fields in which errors have immediately deadly consequences. The method, however, can be adopted in any situation. The only real cost is, perhaps, feeling slightly self-conscious at reading what sounds like a simple statement back to someone.
Still, CLC can save aggravation, even in low-stakes situations. Imagine this: you are driving somewhere while your friend gives you directions (hey, I’m in a retro pre-GPS guidance frame here).
“Turn right here,” they say, gesturing at something you can’t see because you’re looking at the road.
“Make a right at the light?” you ask.
“No, turn left, right there,” they say, pointing. Luckily you have enough time to change lanes and turn safely. Life just got a little easier.
Song lyrics, of course, aren’t exactly a viable medium for CLC. It’s not like I was going to call A-ha and sing “Take on Me” back to them to ensure I understood them correctly. But my long-held misapprehension shows just how deeply misunderstandings can take root, and how carefully we can justify them, even in the face of contradictory evidence.
All I ask today is that you not be me, hearing something wrong and not questioning it for decades. Implementing closed-loop communication, in both professional and social contexts, has ample upside.
So until next time, expect the unexpected, stay informed, and I’ll stay informal.
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