Hi, welcome to Sonic Serial. I'm Jesse and I'm Mark. And in this podcast, we take a deep
dive into albums from some of our favorite artists track by track. And today we're going
to be continuing with Bjerg's 1993 debut, which was recorded in London. And today we're
talking about Trax 10 and 11, Violently Happy. And Anchor Song. Yes. Okay, let's talk about
some background on Violently Happy. Violently Happy. So this was produced by Nelly Hooper. And
in a 1996 interview with ID Magazine, she said, it's about when you're a junkie on exchanging
emotion, not at one, but at level, not at level one, but at level 200. But when the other person
is gone, you get restless and into trouble by doing things like running on rooftops and
blizzards and drinking 97 tequila. So it's like she's having abandonment issues, like
she's a destructive pet or something. And she also said that it was brave to put this song
out as it was about her personal experience of being away from her lover while living
in Reykjavik. Who was that lover? I believe it was at the time she was dating Dominik
Thrup or Dauntee. Maybe he was in London after the talk. Okay, before we get into production,
since this was released as a single, it has a cover. And we like to talk about the album art
and the videos. This, so it's, it's kind of a pink sepia. And it looks like she's like they took
it from the same shoot as her debut album cover. Yeah, shopped by Sean Pacti's Mondino. But it has
the kind of a pink sepia instead of a yellowy greeny one. Yeah. And it shows her, the other
one's just kind of from the shoulders up, but this one shows her whole body. And it honestly
looks like like she's coming out of the TV on the ring movie. And it's kind of scary, but maybe
it's fitting to the song because the thing's kind of, I mean, the song is about like being
manic and stuff. So, but anyway, she's sitting kind of on her haunches, on her legs, what do you call
that? When you're like sitting on the legs? Yeah, and you have your feet kind of behind you. Yeah.
But maybe it's just her outfit in her shoes, but it just looks, it just looks like she's like
contorted. Okay. So let's talk about the video for Violin. Happy this is one of her better
known videos. Yeah, it was shot by Jean Pacti's Mondino, who also did the album cover artwork
for, or he shot the photo for the album cover debut. And the video was shot in Los Angeles,
January 1994. But the video was postponed by a day because of the Northridge earthquake that happened
in London. Which happened in Los Angeles. And she said that she found the earthquake exciting, as
opposed to frightening. Yeah. Which would make sense. I think I found I think my first earthquake in
in Southern California, I found exciting. Yeah, I mean, I don't feel like I've experienced a big
one, just a little one. But yeah, they're okay. So the video takes place in a padded room, kind of
like an asylum. Right. And there's a camcorder recording, Björk and other people who are patients,
and they're just dancing, jumping around, playing with dolls and cutting their hair off.
And all the dolls that they're holding look like them. Oh, I didn't notice that. Yeah.
Yeah. And then Björk has a pair of scissors that she uses to cut off her hair and rip a teddy bear
apart. And we were talking about this earlier, how the kind of the bear. Oh, yeah. visuals have
have sort of been part of this album. Yeah. A lot of the videos like simple as I don't know.
But she's she's certainly doing a number on the bear in this video. Yeah. Oh, it's like revenge,
because the bear ate her in the other video. And her eggs. No, not that one. Oh, there. Yeah.
That's right. So the video plays off this manic state by putting Björk and others in this kind
of padded room. And they're they're looking kind of happy, though, they're like just really getting
down. Yeah, it's like freedom. Yeah, they're dancing and have any good time. And I'm side note.
The Walking Dead actor Norman Reedus is one of the many actors in the video.
I couldn't pick them out. I'm gonna have to look again. He has like kind of a birdie hair.
Okay, we'll all look for it. But I was wondering like, how this video would go down today because
I think like many of the I think like life back then today, it would be questionable. Yeah.
Just from a mental health rights perspective. Yeah. But I don't know, these are like movies
where people are in St. Asylum, etc. So but yeah, I think it's definitely more of a
sensitive, sensitively, sensitively covered issue. Yeah. Okay, so I'll talk about the lyrics.
It is the final single of the album. And it has kind of the darkest
vibe of all of the songs. And it builds and builds kind of in this frenzied way.
And while she's being frenzied, chopping her hair off, dancing in a pad of room, she's saying,
I'm violently happy because I love you.
I am violently happy.
But you're not here. Violently happy. Come calm me down.
Before you get into trouble.
So yeah, it's about being reckless.
How did you get that? How did you get being reckless from it?
Well, in the verses, she talks about like how she's driving her car really fast and jumping
off the roofs. And it just sounds very dangerous. She's so static that she's just like being careless.
Yeah, I guess. Yeah, that's what it's about. It's careless.
You know, when you're happy and you're in love and all of those things, you kind of like feel like
you know, nothing can bring you down. And you get careless. Yeah. Okay. You play with scissors.
Okay, let's talk about the production for violently happy. So the song starts off with her.
All right, let's talk about production for violently happy. So the song starts off
with her. I need to get through this. Okay. So the way wait, wait, Jesse just cut everything out
up to right now. We're going to start again with production. No, I'm just giving you a note. Thank
you. Okay, let's talk about production for violently happy. The song starts off like
she's singing. I was just going to take the first line to give you a way to kind of
say going in. All right, now we're going to do it take four.
Let's talk about production for violently happy. The song starts off with a bit of apaca.
Okay.
All right, let's talk about production for violently happy. The song starts off with a bit of
acapella before a dance beat comes in. Yes. And then as the song progresses, there's a lot of
percussion in the song. And at one point her voice is sampled and repeated after she sings
baby.
Okay, let's talk about how the context of violently happy.
So yeah, what are you doing? The way it follows the the chill.
Okay, let's talk about the album context. You have in your notes here that evens out the mixture
of dance and chill songs. What do you mean by that? Just the way it follows the like chill dreamy
down tempo vibe of come to me and it comes like right before the calm,
anchor song, which is acoustic. And so it's kind of like the last
storm before the calm. Wait, I thought this was the last song on the album.
This is the next to last. Oh, I got that wrong. Okay. So I said that previously.
Okay. And what about live performances?
She performed this on her first three tours debut post in homogenic. And with her unplugged
show, she included a glass harmonica and a bowed waterphone. Okay, we talked about glass
harmonica. What's what's a bowed water? So it's like this metal plate with pipes metal pipes on it.
And they just like put a like a violin bow. Yeah, it's been used in a lot of horror films.
And so it's kind of a trippy sound.
And what about covers and remixes? It's been remixed by Fluke,
Graham Massey and Masters at Work. And I'm currently working on a cover myself.
What's the vibe? I like Dev Tones is Sigaro's ish like rock.
It's actually like I was trying to get more serious, not as dancing, like to match the lyrics more.
Yeah. My favorite is the Masters at Work.
Just because I was a big fan of theirs at the time. But actually, I would say it's weird that
there was a point where this song and bedtime stories were both like songs that I listened to.
Yeah, like they were on my walk men thing.
I remember thinking back then how like they had so many similarities when I like the beat and
you know, that stuff. Yeah, they were kind of dreamy and
yeah. So covers and remixes. What about any trivia for this song?
From the website, Misfurred Lyrics. Oh, yeah, there's a website called Misfurred Lyrics,
which is one of them funny is love and be happy instead of only happy. And you can do the next
one because I'm trying to figure out where in the song this is. Oh, oh, you'll get into trouble real
soon if you don't catch your baby. And it's originally I'll get into trouble real soon if
you don't get your baby. Catch your baby. They should put the original lyric first and then
Misfurred Lyrics. Yeah. Okay, that was a journey through finally happy. Yeah.
Okay, our next song is anchor song. It's the last track on the album track 11. And let's start off
with a little bit of background as we do. The song was written in the summer of 1999, 1990,
when Bjork left her boy, Sindri, with a childmind or I guess like a babysitter. Yeah. For a while
and she just stood across Iceland on a freedom thing. Is that in quotes because she's she called
it that probably like she's talked about I guess it would be the equivalent of like soul searching.
No, I get that but here it says in the notes it says that she said across Iceland on a freedom
thing in quotes. I'm wondering if that's like her words. Oh, yeah. Okay.
Yeah. So she wrote her bicycle around and she had the purpose of just around like her street.
No, around the island. Okay.
There's a big difference there. Why'd you just say that?
Because I just picture a little cold asack. Like riding a bicycle in a circle. And you know,
that's like you don't live with a babysitter to do that.
Oh, God. Okay, so she yeah, she was riding it around the island and she was trying to
visit all these churches that she heard about and she brought her little walkman with her and
she asked the farmer if she could play as Oregon and when she expected no, they all said yes. And
so she would just sit in a church for two hours and then just visit the next one. And
and so when she was playing the organ at these churches, that's when she wrote
some of the songs from debut, one of them is Anchor Song.
There was a, we ran across somebody's dissertation about Bjork online. Oh, yeah.
It's 200 pages long. It's a PhD dissertation and it's it's kind of brilliant. Yeah. We obviously
read it all. But in it, they talk about how Bjork has always talked about being an atheist. Oh,
yeah. But that over time, she's realized that if the if like she does have a religion, it's music.
And so it's interesting that she's going on with these churches, but what she's doing in them is
like playing organs. Yeah. So yeah. Because it seemed like they had to keep the fact that they were
Christians under wraps or like, no, they like brought. Where is this? They brought during the
Spanish Inquisition. No, they brought in it was the Vikings that I see. Okay. They said, yeah,
we'll respect all this Christian stuff as long as like you can let us still do our pagan
yeah, andism stuff. So she wrote this deal. Paganism. Okay. So she wrote this song when she
moved into a house by the harbor. So I'm assuming the point she's yeah, yeah, she goes into the ocean.
And she said it was based on her grandmother's paintings. It's touching.
Wait, it was based on her dream and her grandmother's paintings. So she must have dreamed
or she must have dreamt about her grandmother's paintings. Yeah, it's just yeah, yeah, probably.
So while Bjork was wrapping up on the sugar cubes last album, their producer Paul Fox was
planning on having Bjork record the jazz standard life is just a bowl of cherries. And we talked
about this in the last episode, but we're just here to clear it up. So he thought of her doing
it with saxophonist Oliver Lake for the film Curly Sue. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, we said in the
last episode that the song was used, life is just a bowl of cherries, it was used in Curly Sue, but
but unfortunately, John Hughes shut down the idea. He wasn't too fond of it. And but
and on the bright side, it led to a collaboration between Bjork and Lake.
Yeah. And in a recent podcast about recording debut, Bjork cites Roland Kirk. Bjork cites
Roland Kirk's The Inflated Tier has an inspiration for incorporating jazz and for us on the album.
I what is the inflated tier? It's a jazz song by Roland Kirk. Okay.
Bjork says of the anchor song, when I brought my demos of Icelandic brass players during the
anchor song to my record company, the boss said it was only going to sell a third of the sugar
cubes. It sounds naff to say these things, but it's just a happy accident that people liked it.
Yeah. Yeah. So I'm sure right and left people are telling her that she was just too like
different. Yeah. And that she should probably be more mainstream. Yeah. And it sounds like it was
one of those instances. So good on you, Bjork, for to be more poppy and for standing in your grounds.
That's why we love you. All right, lyrics. Yeah. So it's just a little poem about living by the ocean
and settling or putting down your roots. It's also it also shows Bjork's affinity for nature in the
ocean. So Iceland is home. Well, let's not talk about the lyrics, but you just gave us a good
overview. I can say the whole song in two seconds. Okay. I live by the ocean. And during the night,
I dive into it and I drop my anchor. This is where I'm staying. This is my home. Okay, there's not a
produced video official video. There's not an official video. But there is a video out there,
which is part of the documentary we talked about earlier. And it's, I guess it's not really official
or because it's an Icelandic and video. And I guess it kind of gives you an image of like how Bjork
conceived the song. I like that she looks like Rachel from Blade Runner in the video.
I wonder if I can do my hair like that. You probably could. Production. Yeah. So it's a minimal song
about well, it's similar to like someone in love. It's just Bjork's voice and saxophone. So pretty
acoustic. And the lyrics and music. Yeah, the music and the lyrics. So it's kind of like a
call and response. And it's been said to be replicating the avant-garde of the ocean.
Hmm. Her songs are so multi layered. You know, like there's just these little subtle things,
like Easter eggs in the song. Yeah. The fact that and like, yeah, how the music and the lyrics
are connected. Yeah. And even just the little like techniques she uses, like, you know, the ocean
and along with like the conversation. Yeah. Yeah. All right.
Covers and remixes. This was sampled by four artists. The first being
Naked by the Jet Age of Tomorrow in 2013. The next one is Dive into it by Mr. Lies in 2012.
And then there's Virtual Cuts, side A by Scalpel with S-K-A-L-P-E-L in 2000. And
there's a Black Anchors by a Des version. Cool. I checked those out. Yeah. And what about remixes?
The only remix for this song is by the Black Dog. It's quite ambient with repetitive loops of
the brass, like, and it sounds like a Steve Wright piece.
It's Steve Wright. He's like a classical composer who had a lot of repeating patterns.
Okay. So it kind of sounds like the CD skipping, but I don't know.
Okay. She remixed one of Tribe Calls called Quest songs for them, right?
So Tribe Called Quest has a song called Thressed Out. Oh, yeah. And then they had,
they wanted you to remix it for them. Yeah. She remixed it and in that remix,
it incorporates similar jazz brass sounds. So it kind of sounds like something similar to
anchor songs. So that's just interesting. And album context, how does this fit into the rest
of the album? It's a lot to say. So I, like I previously mentioned, I feel like it complements
the previous track, but I'm happy because they kind of contrast and moods in a way,
like Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde. And it makes me feel like she's had a hangover all day from the previous
night of going crazy. And she's finally calmed down by immersing herself in the ocean and letting
nature soothe her and take care of her. I think finally happy is about going manic over wanting
to be with someone who is away while anchoring someone. It feels like just contentment and
realizing that all the love you need is at home in front of you. Wait, wait, wait.
This is like contentment and realizing all the love you need is at home in front of you.
What's in front of you? That's what I was trying asking is in the mirror. Is it?
Like, it's a home in front of you. It's not behind you. I don't know. It could be.
Oh, like in time in front of you. I should have said in front of you.
Dot dot dot. Oh, behind you. That still wouldn't have made me. Okay, it says
it's about contentment and realizing all the love you need is at home in front of you.
You mean like in the future? It's at home in the future. I see. Yeah. I thought it was like
she walks in and there's like, you know, like the Babadook in there and she's like,
he's like in front of her and she's like, this is all I need.
That's what I thought is a mirror because it's like I only need myself. I don't need these other people.
Because if it would have said all you all you need to be happy is at home in you,
right, then you'd be like, oh, that's saying that like you're all you need to be happy. You don't
need other people. I didn't write that from an interview. No, we were just trying to figure it out.
Okay, let's talk about live performances of the anchor song.
Yeah, she's performed this song on almost every tour with different instruments in a solo or a
group format. It is usually one of the concluding tracks of the show and she performs it in both
Icelandic and English. She's performed this with saxophones, necordian strings, organ, aquire, trumpets,
and flutes. Just to name a few. And from the trivia tree, as far as misheard lyrics,
the original lyric is, oh, I cut it off here. What's the original lyric? Oh, I dive into it and
drop my anchor. Oh, and the most misheard, popular misheard lyric is I dive into it and broke my
ankle. That can happen. That could happen. So, you know, it's why would she be happy about it? Yeah.
And I broke my ankle. His dropping anchor is such a symbolic, I'm home, I'm dropping
anchor, I'm here. And breaking your ankle is like. She's like really sad about it. Well, that was
quite the episode. We made it. We made it. And you made it too. Congratulations on sticking with us
through Bjork's debut, her first album and the topic of our first podcast.