Björk

Songs

• There's definitely, definitely, definitely, no logic to human behaviour
  . . .
  There's no map
  And a compass
  Wouldn't help at all
  • "Human Behaviour" (single; 1993)

• I'm a fountain of blood in the shape of a girl
  . . .
  leave me now return tonight
  tide will show you the way
  if u forget my name you will go astray like a killer whale trapped in a bay
  • "Bachelorette" (single; 1996)

• His wicked sense of humour suggests exciting sex
  His fingers focus on her
  Her touches
  He's Venus as a Boy!
  • "Venus as a Boy", from the CD single Venus as a Boy (1993)

• I'm back at my cliff
  still throwing things off
  I listen to the sounds they make
  on their way down
  I follow with my eyes 'til they crash
  imagine what my body would sound like slamming against those rocks
  and when it lands
  will my eyes
  be closed or open?
  • "Hyper-Ballad", from Post (1995)

• I thought I could organize freedom
  How Scandinavian of me
  • "Hunter" (Homogenic; 1997)

• I want to go, on a mountain top!
  With a radio and good batteries
  And play a joyous tune
  And free the
  human
  race
  from suffering (saccharine)
  • "Alarm Call", from Homogenic (1997)

• Emotional landscapes
  They puzzle me
  The riddle gets solved and you push me up to this state of emergency
  How beautiful to be!
  State of emergency
  Is where I want to be
  • "Jóga", from Homogenic (1997)

• I dare you to take me on
  I dare you to show me your palms
  I'm so bored of cowards who say they want (love)
  Then they can't handle love
  • "5 Years", from Homogenic (1997)

• He offers a handshake, crooked five fingers
  They form a pattern yet to be matched
  On the surface simplicity
  But the darkest pit in me is pagan poetry
  • "Pagan Poetry", from Vespertine (2001)

• You have done
  Good for yourselves
  Since you left my wet embrace
  And crawled ashore
  . . .
  My sons and my daughters
  Ho-oh!
  Your sweat is salty
  I am why
  • "Oceania", from Medúlla (2004)

• Declare independence
  Don't let them do that to you
  ...
  Start your own currency
  Make your own stamp
  Protect your language
  • "Declare Independence", from Volta (2007)

Other quotes

• Americans are so dumb!
  • Paper magazine, September 1997

• "I am grateful... grapefruit."
  • At the Brit Awards 1998

• "Everyone is bisexual’: “I’ve always had as many powerful, creative ladies in my life as I have men, and you could probably describe some of those relationships as romantic. I think everyone’s bisexual to some degree or another; it’s just a question of whether or not you choose to recognise it and embrace it. Personally, I think choosing between men and women is like choosing between cake and ice cream. You’d be daft not to try both when there are so many different flavours.”
  • Diva magazine, October 2004

• "But… but… these are the people that made the Busby Berkeley movies, yeah? So they're not exactly subtle."
  • Explaining her "Swan Dress" on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno

• "I don't like records that are the same from beginning to end, that are too styled and slick. Everything is so designed and airbrushed and Botoxed, it makes us think, 'Oh, everybody's perfect except me. Everything's smooth except me.' But nothing is smooth."
  • From Newsweek, September 6 2004 issue, defending a song claimed to be "really hard to listen to" ("Ancestors") from her album Medúlla

• "It's interesting for me to bring up a girl. You go to the toy store and the female characters there — Cinderella, the lady in Beauty and the Beast — their major task is to find Prince Charming. And I'm like, wait a minute — it's 2005! We've fought so hard to have a say, and not just live through our partners, and yet you're still seeing two-year-old girls with this message pushed at them that the only important thing is to find this amazing dress so that the guy will want you. It's something my mum pointed out to me when I was little — so much that I almost threw up — but she's right."
  • From The Observer, March 13 2005 issue, asserting for the first time the appeal to her of feminist ideology
• "It's a big question. Getting rid of religion would be a good start, wouldn't it? It seems to be causing a lot of havoc."
  • When asked "Given the chance, how would you change the world?" (Independent, 18 March 2005.)

• "I was talking to a friend about it recently and I told him that the thing about making that film that upset me most was how cruel Lars is to the woman he is working with. Not that I can't take it, because I'm pretty tough and completely capable of defending myself, but because my ideals of the ultimate creator were shattered. And my friend said "What did you expect? All major directors are "sexist", a maker is not necessarily an expert in human rights or female/male equality!
  My answer was that you can take quite sexist film directors like Woody Allen or Stanley Kubrick and still they are the one that provide the soul to their movies. In Lars von Trier's case it is not so and he knows it. He needs a female to provide his work soul. And he envies them and hates them for it. So he has to destroy them during the filming. And hide the evidence. What saves him as an artist, though, is that he is so painfully honest that even though he will manage to cover up his crime in the "real" world (he is a genius to set things up that everybody thinks it is just his female-actress-at-the-moment imagination, that she is just hysterical or pre-menstrual), his films become a documentation of this "soul-robbery". Breaking the Waves is the clearest example of that.
  bjork."
  • From the www.bjork.com 4um, posted by Björk in response to a question about her conflict with director Lars von Trier during the production of Dancer in the Dark.
• "You know, it's ironic that just at the point the lawyers and the businessmen had calculated how to control music, the internet comes along and fucks everything up." Björk gives the finger again, this time waving it into the air. "God bless the internet," she adds. And what about you, then? "I'll still be there, waving a pirate flag."
  • "Waving a pirate flag; Björk: seditious superstar" by Valur Gunnarsson, Reykjavik Grapevine

About her

• "Do not fuck with Björk! Björk will beat your ass! ... I saw Björk beat this woman's ass one time in this videotape. She was in the Bangkok airport and she was pushing her luggage cart and this woman came up and just touched her and Björk went (roaring and hissing). And it was so scary, because you didn't expect it at all, because Björk is so cute. ... And Björk called the woman she attacked afterwards to apologize. 'I'm very sorry I tried to pull your eyes up over your head. Somebody must have fed me after midnight.' But Björk wore the best dress ever to the Oscars, ever. She wore a swan. And I'm not talking about a dress with white feathers on it. Oh, no. She rocked the whole bird. The beak was up here and shit. And she accessorized it with an egg -- what else you gon' wear with your bird?! And all of the fashion magazines said she was the worst dressed, but when they say you're the worst, that means you're the best."
  • Margaret Cho, Assassin