“Bird species never seen or heard before
The first flute carved from the first fauna”
To visualize this Björk used a host of Icelandic women playing flutes, which represents the chirping of birds. The scene is dreamy, heavenly, and ecstatic. In facts, the birds have enabled her to create a relaxing ideal world or Utopia. The melodious sound effect from the flutes accompanied by the singer’s calm but intense voice make her world more engaging and enchanting, thereby strongly compelling the audience entering into it for living peacefully.
However, breaking the utopian tradition, soon Björk confronts us with the ugliness behind this fanciful world. She wants to say that we don't need to go somewhere else to see this ugliness. The world itself is the Utopia since behind its eye-catching surface appearance there is another antithetical inner look which is full of evil, injustice, dishonesty, barbarism, and so the like. God entrusted nature to guide us towards the right path. But as human beings have a predilection to evil by birth they never follow the right path:
“Utopia
It’s not
Elsewhere
…
You assigned me to protect our lantern
To be intentional about the light”
Horrified by these dark sides, the singer, the queen of the birds/nature feels an urge for purifying the evil which lies deep down the human heart. She reinforces this by saying “Let’s get out of here!” But this is not actually a call for escape from the world, rather a request for renouncement of evil:
“My instinct has been shouting at me for years
Saying let’s get out of here
Huge toxic tumor bulging underneath the ground here
Purify, purify, purify, purify toxicity”
There are also strong indications of feminist thoughts in this song. All the birds are represented by females, which emblems the womankind. The weirdly-clad women were playing flutes in pensive mode indicating the zeal for female emancipation. The grotesque organ on the upper portion of the singer’s body resembles most possibly to a female vulva which is again symbolic of womanhood.
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