It’s Oh So Quiet

Its Oh So Quiet
There is a song Björk wants me to hear, one of her favorites. It is a kitsch ’40s affair called ’It’s Oh So Quiet’ by Betty Hutton. The big speakers for her walkman aren’t working properly, so she takes them and holds them on either side of my head. Whenever the song goes loud and upbeat she jiggles the speakers up and down in a low-tech, slightly painful version of Sensurround. Isn’t that the best song you’ve heard for five years ? she raves.

Details, july 1994

Its Oh So Quiet
Isn’t that the best song you’ve heard for five years ? In a way it was against my principles to do an old cover version because I’m so anti-retro. But it has this story, this narrative : there’s a beginning and something happens in the middle and the ending is different. So many pop songs, especially with English lyrics, are just 900 different ways of saying ’she left me !’ Which i actually love because it’s pop, just one idea, very simple, but it doesn’t mean it’s cheap. I can relate to it, but I belong to the storytelling group.

Raw, janvier 1996

Its Oh So Quiet
I still don’t know how to write that kind of song and I want to. To write with that kind of lust for life about now, 1996, completely full-on life, saying on the scale of one to ten I’m gonna live life at 17. They’ve got the joy for it, that fierce love for it, and also the pain.

i-D, #154, june 1996

Its Oh So Quiet
It was amazing ! It was me and my friends and Spike Jonze and his friends. In the summer in L.A. and the whole atmosphere around it was fun ! It was in 1995.

Bjork.com webchat, 22 june 2000

Its Oh So Quiet
It was sort of a joke really. It was a song Guy Sigsworth used to play on the bus when we were touring. Ever since, I almost regret doing it bacuse I wanted to put so much importance on making new music. So many people are doing old music and you’ve even got new bands doing old music. If I put something out in this world, it would be the courage to go ahead and invent things, so it’s ironic ’It’s Oh So Quiet’ became my biggets song. The best bit was the video.

Record Collector, August 2002, August 2002

Its Oh So Quiet
People think my version is over the top ,but hers makes mine the ambient version ! I guess the song describes pretty well what being in love feels like because it’s in and out, isnt it ?

Sky 12/95

Its oh so Quiet
Guy (Sigsworth) found it in a truckstop and it became the tour anthem of last tour. Turned us on before the gigs. And the rest is history.

AOL 1995-11-17

Its Oh So Quiet
Would you take offence if I said my favourite Börk song is ’It’s Oh So Quiet’ ? My obvious answer to that is I didn’t write that song. So yeah ! It is interesting because to be honest for somebody like me, there’s always that conflict between writing music, being a musician and being a singer. Maybe on this album I decided to be not such a nerd stuck in front of the computer for nine billion years and my voice serves that side of me - I just wanted to get out a bit more. I had cabin fever. I just wanted to be the singer a bit more, so I understand. l’ve been a singer since I was a child and maybe have matured most on stage with a microphone in my hand in front on an audience since the age of 12. It wasn’t until 27 years old that I went in a studio and made my own music... so forgive...

Attitude - 12.05.2007

Its Oh So Quiet
It was the last song we did. Just to make it absolutely certain that the album would be as schizophrenic as possible, that every song would be a shock.

The Stereogum Interview, March 2008