Bjork - Medulla
- Sep 8, 2004
- Series: Music
Bjork never ceases to amaze me. Ever since the Sugar Cubes the world has had a strange fascination with this little Icelandic pixie with a punch. The last album of hers that I've owned was Homogenic and I recall listening to it for hours because its sound mirrored how my life felt. Rolling Stone called Homogenic one of the boldest – and most exciting – albums of the year. (Since then Bjork has released Selmasongs in 2000 and Vespertine in 2001) Bjork now releases a new album Medulla. Bjork explains, "Medulla basically means ‘marrow' in medical language, in Latin. Not just you're bone marrow, but marrow in the kidneys and marrow in your hair, too. It's about getting to the essence of something."
Bjork continues her experimental musical adventures into the melodic raw emotions with Medulla. Bjork delivers an album almost entirely created with human voices, only trace amounts of keyboard use is on the album. The result is a contradiction being built around the voices of a few artists who produce sounds and background with a raw accessibility yet is manufactured through the use of computers and editing. We experience a world of pure human sound that is artificially created and are left with a stark contrast.
One of the tracks on the album, titled “ Oceania ” was commissioned by the Olympic committee. This song was premiered at the 2004 Olympics in Athens , Greece. As Bjork tells it:
"Basically, the Olympics people asked me to do a kind of 'Ebony and Ivory' or 'We Are the World' type song. Those are smashing tunes and all that, but I thought, 'Maybe there's another angle to this.' When I tried to write an Olympic lyric, though, it was full of sports socks and ribbons. I ended up pissing myself laughing." Björk decided to call on Sjón Sigurdsson, Icelandic poet and previous lyrics-collaborator. Needing something epic, Sjón took a course in Greek mythology, and then wrote these lyrics for ' Oceania ', a kind of aquatic sojourn and the last song recorded for Medúlla. "The Olympic version will be a little different. But it will fit the occasion, I think, because the song is all about how the ocean doesn't see boundaries between countries and thinks everyone is the same. Sjón came up with this beautiful last line that touches on how we were all little jellyfish or whatever before we made it on to land. He has The Sea saying, 'Your sweat is salty / And I am why / Your sweat is salty / And I am why.'" (Björk 13 Aug 2004 )
 Bjork - Modern Day Poet/Philosopher |
Bjork's belief system ebbs out of the words in the song. She paints a picture of universalism and a connected humanity through our common evolutionary tale taking us back to the ocean where we all oozed onto the sand for a chance to lounge on dry land. Bjork truly is a prophet for the day as she delivers a powerful message that connects all living things, she writes:
OCEANIA
One breath away
from Mother Oceania
your nimble feet make prints
in my sand
You have done
good for yourselves
since you left my wet embrace
and crawled ashore
Every boy is a snake is a lily
every pearl is a lynx is a girl
These thoughts Bjork expresses are echoed by our neighbors, friends and co-workers. We all want to believe there is something beautiful in the unity of all the universe and often it is unified in chance and evolution. While these beliefs are seductive they come at a great price. If 'every boy is a snake which is a lily' than is man anything more than an animal. Further if we are an animal should we consider morality, love and beauty as anything more than chemical reactions that have no value in and of themselves? We are, after all, evolved sea slime. If we are walking and see a elderly lady step into on-coming traffic, it's survival of the fittest time, shouldn't we just watch her get pummeled to death by the approaching trucks?
The bottom line is that to believe that we are nothing more than evolved animals is to remove hope, meaning, logic and humanity from our existence. We all know there are things that are evil (killing babies, genocide, etc.) and things that are good (loving others, sharing, etc.). These facts have not evolved but have been consistent through all mankind. Evolution and universalism does not answer these questions.
As a believer I can say that life has value because we are created in the image of God. God designed all people to have knowledge of what is good and evil. This is our conscience that many of us would like to suppress it because we know when we do things that are wrong and often ‘feel' guilty or bad because we are doing these things. We also know that humans have value, that life is important and should be treasured. We are not just a collection of chance, time and chaos. We are all equal image-bearers of a God who created us.
Without this view people can not provide an adequate unifying reason why we should treat others with love. Why should we not kill, or condemn racisism or try to correct the wrongs in the world? Without God all we are left with is a claim of what our ‘feelings' tell us but what happens when Hitler feels it's right to exterminate the Jews and we feel it's wrong? We have no objective claim against what other cultures perceives as right and wrong.
This subject is quite weighty to deal fully with in a review of Bjork's music. I would suggest that you consider the questions we often purposefully avoid. How can we know what is good and evil? How do we know what is true? Do you believe that we have moral laws because we have an ultimate moral law-giver in God who has told us what is right and wrong?
If you do not believe in God I would challenge you to answer these questions. Dig deeper than what you feel. If we are evolved, if there isn't a God, how can we know what is true? Where is the ultimate source of truth? If you'd like to discuss this further post your answers and enter the dialogue we have on our forum.
If you are a believer I would recommend that you examine these questions. There has been a consistent ignorance within the faith. Yes we have peace with God but to not wrestle through these questions is to keep silent in a conversation where only we have answers because God has communicated to us through Jesus and Scripture. Here are some recommended books to read on the subject:
Trilogy: The God Who Is There, Escape from Reason and He Is There & He Is Not Silent By Francis Schaeffer (These books are considered the three central works of Francis from which all 20+ of his other work hinged upon.)
Apologetics to the Glory of God by John Frame (A classic work on apologetics)
Can Man Live Without God by Ravi Zacharias (A good primer on apologetics mixing evidential/presuppositionalism.)
As Christians we need to examine these truths so that we can give a hope for the faith that we have in Christ (1 Peter 3:15 ) knowing that God has revealed himself in creation (Romans 1:19 ) and we can answer the questions that the world's philosophers cannot. Too frequently Christians have ignored the disciplined study of Scripture and the truth that God gives to us to bring light into the world and ultimately point to the answer in the need of Jesus Christ. I pray that we can love the world around us and be willing to tackle some of the challenging concepts that our world has to struggle with.
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