hello my name is ixi and this is my very
first bjork analysis when i thought
about the first bjork song that i was
going to analyze i just knew it was
going to be this one because
i think this was the first bjork song i
ever heard i didn't realize that this
song actually has two pretty different
versions there's the version that went
along with the music video that was
released uh with robots
and then there's another version which
is on the album homogenic and that is
the one that i grew up listening to i
thought it was an ambient song with
vocals turns out it actually has a full
production when i first heard this song
on homogenic it was really overwhelming
for me the beautiful message paired with
this sort of structuralist meandering
pulsating
uh a background it almost reminded me of
like a hymn for my soul i'm not really a
lyrics analyzer per se i'm mostly going
to be analyzing the harmonies the
melodies and a little bit about the
production and how that sort of supports
the message how that sort of supports
the words but more importantly it's how
the song feels to me how it feels even
without words if you're not sure why i'm
dressed like this
i like to be on brand i bought this in
tokyo it was made in china
let's start with the original version
which is what accompanied the music
video so it starts with these beautiful
strings which give us the impression
that we're in b-flat minor
[Music]
the strings are hitting some really
tense notes uh almost sounds like kind
of like tone clusters
that's really tragic sounding i think
against the impression of a b flat
underneath
partly it's just because of this
beautiful major ninth i think
the the second degree or the nine it can
just sound really really
sad
against a minor background
there's a storm coming anyway this
part's just so cinematic you know the
strings just kind of swelling
it doesn't actually give a very strong
sense of a tunnel center so it's just
it's it's really emotional and it kind
of sets the stage like this is where
like the curtain kind of goes up
[Music]
the verse i would say is in d flat major
starting with an f minor chord then
going to the d flat major chord and then
going up to an unresolved g flat major
chord so that sounds like this
[Music]
the reason i say it's in d flat major is
because that is the chord where we
feel the most at home
it feels really stable and settled there
like everything was trying to get there
all along and then there's the tension
[Music]
tension
that tension
is tense
[Music]
so if this is in d flat major then this
f minor chord is the minor three chord
it's interesting to hear bjork using the
three chord in this context because the
three chord and the one chord are
considered tonic chords and they don't
have a huge difference between them they
share a lot of common tones and that
progression is considered not very
strong
but it doesn't mean it's bad it just
means it's not very strong and you can
hear it doesn't really create any sort
of drama or any sort of big shift or any
sort of real tension
that's very nice it's this chord that i
think creates the tension
[Music]
but i think it creates enough
tension just a little
to make it sound like everything is
locked into place when we finally get to
the word love
and it is a minor chord so it has
already a little bit more of a
complexity and fragility to it than the
certainty of the major chord so this is
all very diatonic diatonic means that
the chords and the notes are all
adhering to a very specific scale a
major scale or a minor scale and it's
not borrowing anything from any other
scale there's no rogue notes nothing
that's coming in that doesn't naturally
belong
so it's a very very sweet pretty chord
progression and it's maybe not the one
that i would have immediately assumed
that you would put underneath her melody
and let's look at why so how i see it
bjork's vocal melody is essentially
an arpeggiated sort of out of order b
flat minor seven chord
in d flat major the sixth degree of the
scale is b flat the sixth degree tends
to sound kind of lost and seeking but
not really sure where it wants to go
next
without that b flat the chord that she's
arpeggiating is a d flat major chord
we add the b flat end and it takes on
this sort of unsettled sound
it's absolutely beautiful but it does
sound like it wants to go somewhere
that's partially why i think that this
minor iii chord has a little more to it
than usual is because of the melody over
it
which is creating tension in and of
itself hearing this melody by itself i
might have assumed that it would be a
plagal cadence so going between one and
four something like this
that sounds a lot more conventional so i
really admire this chord progression
it's not something i would have thought
of but i think it's really really
interesting when you have more tension
it tends to make things sound a little
bit more longing or more yearning or
more incomplete
or just more complicated
like humans her melody ends on the third
of the tonic chord so she goes
i love this because the third of a cord
is very warm
very humanizing can sound very tender
it's just got it's a hug
whereas the minor third can sound a
little bit more cold a little bit more
calculated a little more detached
so bringing this
this part of the cord out with her voice
on the word love
i think is part of why
arriving there feels so
good even with a drum groove behind her
in this song bjork's
vocal style is very improvisational
sounding to me it doesn't sound very
structured it sounds like she could sing
it differently every time her timing is
very exploratory even though this has a
grid you know it's in four four four
beats per measure
she's staying within the phrases but
within the phrases she's sort of
meandering in a way that it would be
very difficult to actually notate
her vocal melody so it's it's like not
easy to follow but that can kind of i
don't know that kind of relaxes me
because i don't there's nothing really
to grab onto so there's there's this
feeling of just like letting go like an
isolation tank and just floating there
is a synth that sounds a little bit like
a harp or a harpsichord it's very
shimmery just kind of comes in similarly
to her voice it doesn't really seem like
it's fitting into the grid it just kind
of comes in when it comes in and the
rhythm is
just kind of exploratory it's sort of
saying what it wants to say
it's not trying to fit into any box i
think a lot of the time it's kind of um
playing the notes in the d flat major
seven uh chord
with some other notes in between but
like that's sort of the main sound i'm
hearing i'm definitely hearing this
major seventh
that raised seventh at the end there
creates a lot of tension but at the same
time this chord is naturally
uh the seventh chord built off of the
tonic so
it also kind of sounds flaccid and
uh like it's kind of like right
it sounds right but it also sounds a
little bit like dot dot dot you know
this doesn't sound as certain as like
[Music]
sweet sweet tension you have
to trust it this song doesn't have verse
chorus verse chorus so this middle
section is sort of an extension in a way
of the verse uh but the chord
progression is just a little bit
different so instead of this
we just go back and forth between the f
minor and the g flat major the three and
the major four
and so without the tonic chord in there
this feels so
stuck
like we're taking a step forward
nothing's there take a step back
nothing's there nothing's really
changing right and her melody's not
really changing either and this is
building tension this is building an
expectation that something's gotta give
so we don't have any resolution and each
line each main lyrical line starts with
maybe
so listen to the uncertainty in this so
after all of this
it's just it's really unsatisfying
[Music]
around
sorry that was really out of tune but
you get the idea when she finally goes
twist your head around we come around
right it's it's so perfect it's like in
that moment
there it is there's the love
it's all around you like you're right i
see it now
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
this chorus is really emotional for me i
think it's so perfect if i just heard
her melody by itself i would assume that
this would be the chord progression that
she would choose but it's interesting
because in the ambient version that i
know a lot better
the chord progression is sort of absent
and what's implied is a lot more tense
and unfinished sounding but this is
absolutely beautiful going back and
forth between my
favorite chord the flat six chord
and the tonic this chorus is actually
departing from the d flat major world
into the b flat minor world and b-flat
minor is the relative minor key to
d-flat major so they're very much
related
they have all the same notes and same
chords it's just that what we consider
to be our tonic our tunnel center where
everything comes to finish and makes
sense
is different because where we come to a
place of arrival in the song is a minor
chord
[Applause]
[Music]
oh god so there are strings in this
section and they are going
[Music]
okay i haven't gotten that completely
right but the main the main thing i'm
hearing is this part um
oh my gosh
there's another really beautiful uh
sample or production element i want to
point out and it sounds like a reverse
clarinet uh in middle school all through
college i played the clarinet so um when
i heard the sound that's what it made me
think of i could be wrong and it's
playing a b-flat minor chord
arpeggiated somewhat
[Music]
what's really nice about this is that
when we're on the b flat minor chord
it's basically just playing the same
chord
but then when we go to the flat six
chord listen
[Music]
that creates this g flat major seven
chord
there's a lot of
like seventh chords created between
the the
all the different production elements
and her voice and i feel like that's a
big part of what makes this song uh so
yearning so during this course she is
singing
even higher she's repeating this angelic
mantra all is full of love all is full
of love
and at first we have sort of another
overdub of bjork singing in a lower
register a different way
uh like a different part of her
you know almost like a disassociation
you could you could you could see like a
music video version where there's an
angel bjork singing all is full of love
like really really beautiful and full of
wisdom and then there's another bjork
and it's all like soft focus and she's
looking to the left and she's just going
you ain't receiving
right and so that bjork is kind of
commenting on another thought process
right this is the truth all is full of
love this other part's like you're just
not you're just not listening you're
just not there you're not watching
you're not accepting it you're
disconnected and they're sort of
overlapping these two voices and the
higher angelic part she's singing all is
full of love in the same general rhythm
as the other
lower version of all is full of love but
this time she's just singing a different
part of that chord i believe now that b
flat minor seventh chord she was singing
on
is now inverted
[Music]
it's it's the same chord it's just now
starting in a different place so things
are arranged a little bit differently
certain things are spaced differently
than they were before
[Music]
[Applause]
so after this voice is done singing your
doors are shut it now joins the angelic
mantra up top singing all is full of
love except this voice has so much more
conviction to it has way more meat more
weight
and it seems to be saying the same thing
but in a different way
it sounds like her head voice and the
other one is doing the bjork belt which
is
so powerful i feel like few
vocalists felt like her and in that belt
is a c natural
okay why does this matter
first of all just listen to what it adds
[Music]
doors
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
so the note on the top that everything's
sort of hitting is d flat which is a
half step away from the c
so there is a little bit of a feeling of
a resolution
up to the d flat from the sea
and it's sort of a i think in music
theory terms this is actually called a
retardation but just think of it more as
a delay you know it's kind of like we're
stuck on the same note and we resolve a
bit later than we would expect the chord
changes before
the resolution in the melody so we have
right
so you feel that tension and it's really
really beautiful and part of it is
because this is in b flat minor right
now
and this c is the second degree and i
mentioned that before it's a very sad
sounding note in certain contexts and
this is one of them but also i mean not
just
sad is oversimplification
but without it things sound a bit more
palatable a bit more dreamy
this note in and of itself in this
context is adding so much
just leaning on that and that's what
creates the most power that's the moment
in the song where everything reaches its
fullest potential the other thing i want
to point out is that before when she was
singing all is full of love here
[Music]
the love resolves on the tonic chord in
the third of the chord remember that
warmth
[Music]
now in this b-flat minor world
the love still resolves on the tonic
chord but now it's minor
and the the note that she's resolving to
is no longer the third of the chord
it's the root of the chord and that has
an inherent power to it so listen to the
difference
[Music]
i just realized i think that's part of
why that c natural that second degree
creates so much emotional attention for
me is because we finally get home it's
so certain
and then she's like
it's sort of this like
um it like takes my breath away because
it takes away my sense of arrival so
quickly in such a sad sounding way
but it's it's going up right it's
resolving up this chord progression
feels a bit endless to me you know they
these two chords complement each other
so well just feels like it could go on
forever and in fact the song actually
does fade out also there is a love
that is just continuing
as the song starts to sort of get
smaller and smaller even before the fade
out as layers start to sort of drop off
you could just hear this like endless
echo of of love
okay now let's analyze the version that
i'm most familiar with which is the
ambient version from the album homogenic
the first question i always try to
answer in an analysis is what key is it
in
this one is a little bit ambiguous
because it doesn't have a really clearly
defined chord structure of any kind or
a drum beat so there's a lot about this
that feels very floaty so at first i
kind of hear the pulsing bass playing
like an f maybe an e
or something like that and then that
kind of fades away we get the same
strings here that we had in the other
song
but or the other version but these have
so much more reverb and decay on them so
they kind of blend together it feels
even dreamier
and then it sort of sounds like the
whole song is in
d flat major
[Music]
it's just sort of an implied like d flat
underneath
it's really hard to hear the pitch of
the throbbing base though i actually
think it might be g flat
the whole time but it doesn't didn't
stop my brain from imagining that it was
actually
d flat that takes on a really different
sound than this
[Music]
those chords create a narrative in and
of themselves without that story
it's really the melody that's doing all
of the storytelling
in this version
[Music]
tension
resolution
strange note
resolves
[Music]
then we have this fourth which sounds
very holy in this context
[Music]
and the other version it's
really different in fact the melody is
just following the root of the chord
whereas it's like
[Music]
this version feels even more comforting
to me because of that but then the
chorus is really interesting
there
doesn't again there doesn't seem to be
clear chords in this version and the
bass line doesn't really seem to be
helping which usually it would it's just
sort of being this sort of
really low
blood
like i said its pitch isn't even clear
so my imagination kind of went wild like
imagining what is the tunnel center here
you know where am i
and and what it decided was that it was
on
the g flat chord for the uh
for the chorus and just stayed there
so if you remember the g flat is the
flat six in b-flat minor and that's what
it sounded like to me like we were on a
permanent flat six now it's not that
difficult for me to imagine that i would
be absolutely in love with a song that
just stayed on a flat six chord implying
where the tonic is but never actually
going there because i love the flat 6
chord
[Music]
it really
meant something to me because it felt
like there is no end this really can't
ever be over
there is nowhere to go
it's just here it's all around us
you know life is gonna feel unfinished
intense until it's finally finished
and that love is like forever this is
such um such a different kind of video
than some of the other analysis size
analysis sizes i've been doing and when
i was improvising my favorite thing to
do is to play two tone clusters for each
implied
chord so this part
basically just play
all these notes together
resolving up to the d-flat
there's another cluster so we have
and each cluster sort of implies a
different chord this one implies
what is it i don't know
okay so that one implies the b flat
minor chord
[Applause]
that would be a b flat minor seven add
nine
[Music]
i don't know it's blasphemous for me to
say but sometimes i don't care about the
name of the court in fact when i was
improvising on this song i released that
improv here's the link right here i was
in no way worrying about the names of
chords i wasn't even quite sure what i
was playing i just was feeling it and
that's honestly how i approach music i
feel it and then i sit down and i
dissect it when i really want to
understand
why
i'm feeling this way or what was working
about this or what is this beautiful
thing that i've been playing
the reason i loved that arrangement
is because of the clusters and how tense
that all sounds
so tense
i found that to be more in the spirit of
her harmony
than um
just like straight up minor and major
chords that didn't seem right this is
more
now just to give you an idea i could
resolve it up to the b uh b flat which
is
kind of what i always assumed was
intended in the song hearing it without
a chord progression
uh but it didn't actually go there but
her melody makes it sound like that's
what we're going to do
and also just that's the convention
flat 6 chord with a melody like hers
that kind of fits into both chords you
would think it would go to the tonic
chord next and it just really sounded
like it just stayed
in this place of tension
[Music]
okay i think that's the end of my first
bjork analysis i hope you enjoyed it if
you'd like to see me analyze more
bjork's songs please let me know bye i'm
gonna go for a walk in my kimono