Oceania

Björk à propos du titre Oceania
C’était une bonne discipline de ne pas utiliser de beatboxer, parce que ça m’a fait faire autres choses pour les rythmes, comme inclure Mike Patton et moi, essayant des schéma et des beats, d’y arriver par un autre moyen. Même les beatboxers m’ont dit qu’ils n’avaient jamais bossé comme ça, je les avais donc sorti de leur habitude. C’était bien.

XFM 25/08/2004

Björk à propos du titre Oceania
J’ai, en quelque sorte, caché cette chanson jusqu’au dernier moment parce que je voulais qu’elle soit réservée aux JO. Le dernier jour, j’ai pensé qu’on pouvait y ajouter des voix de sirènes, pour rappeler la mythologie grecque... J’ai donc fait appel à un choeur anglais composé de 16 femmes. J’avais un arrangement au piano sur le pc mais qui n’était pas adapté pour un vrai piano, j’avais donc le choeur pour chanter les sirènes. On m’a recommandé Shlomo, un brillant espoir du hiphop. Je lui ai demandé de faire un "techno tango beat". C’était la partie la plus chouette. Parfois c’est bien de travailler avec un revolver sur la tempe parce que tu ne t’endors pas sur des idées préconçues. Parfois l’adrénaline a de bons effets.

XFM 25/08/2004

Oceania
It was good discipline of me [to try to not use beatboxers], because it made me do a lot of other things for rhythms, like including me and Mike Patton and people that aren’t beatboxers at all, trying to do rhythms, patterns and beats - trying to come around it the other way. Even the beatboxers told me that they had never worked like that before, so I had them too go out of their normal way to do things. That was good. I kept Oceania til last, because I wanted to do it especially for the Olympics. It wasn’t til the last day of mixing that I though - oh ! I need the sirenes, if the Greek mythology ! So we called up an English choir, and we got 16 women. I had done an arrangement for piano on the computer that was insane, impossible for a piano to play, and I got them to sing that, a bit...

XFM interview, August 25 2004

Oceania
"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. 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.’"

August 13, 2004

Oceania
The song you sang at the opening ceremony of the Athens Olympics, "Oceania," has a great line : "Since you left my wet embrace and climbed ashore, every boy is a snake, a lily. Every pearl is a lynx, a girl." I love the image of mankind crawling from the sea. That lyric was written by a friend of mine. See, I was supposed to write some sort of Olympic lyric and I kept making stupid jokes-writing words like "Pull up your socks and carry the torch." I can’t really take the credit for that one.

Newsweek - 06.09.2004

Oceania
I was thinking, What the f— am I going to do with this melody ? So it was perfect when they (Olympics) asked me. I mean, how grand can you get ? The Olympics, right ? But I tried to write the lyrics and I couldn’t. I just came up with rubbish like ‘Pull up your socks and run through the ribbon,’ ‘All the nations hold hands,’ and stupid stuff like that. Pathetic ! So I ended up asking my friend who’s a poet [frequent collaborator Sjón] to write the words.

Entertainment Weekly - 03.09.2004

Oceania
oceania was written for the olympics .. so my odd sense of humour went directly to tom and jerry competing on 2 pianos , as if it was sport. so those extreme runs in between my phrases , were first piano runs and then later, when the focus turned to greece, i decided to make them into nymphs and syrens flying in the sky, wailing i asked sjón to write the lyric, and since i am not the sporty type, i asked him to do it from the point of view of the ocean that surrounds all countries and unites them still feels lush to sing his sentence : " your sweat is salty, i am why* ...!! (from the point of view of the ocean talking to all humans ) those long belted fermata notes were me going mediterranean (i am phoenician, 2000 years back though so it is a bit of a stretch...)

Björk - Octobre 2021