Added: 4 years ago
From: bjorkdotcom
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  • this song has got so beautiful atmosphere... it's happy, crazy, but a little bit sad and sentimental song, too... i love it!

  • The Icelandic version is much better

  • Eyarfjarllaryokul :)

  • She sounds nervous in this one.

  • Put a bird on it!

  • @illogicaltongue I'm putting a bird on toast.

  • i have a friend who saw The Sugarcubes live --- how lucky was he... i know how wonderful that must have been because i too have seen Bjork live and the experience was something i will never forget..

  • i thinks she's weird and a genius at the same time. When you say bjork, you cant say rock, r&b, pop, etc. because her music is a gerne on it's own, and i can't think of any other artist ever who achieved the same.

  • 240p? Ah, Bjork, breakin' my balls here.

  • Sorry to rudely interrupt. But isn't the Galaxie 500 version of 'listen the snow is falling' better?

  • @nearlyeverything Um...no

  • Sugarcubes i love this happysong,m.f.g from Germany

  • Bjork, why the fuck do I love you so much?

  • i hope when i die, bjork is there ... and she likes me!!

  • I just realised an influence on this - Yoko Ono. The screams while not being as piercing and intense as hers are definitely from the same place. She even looks a bit like her. Does anyone know whether Ono was an influence on Bjork?

  • @genericgeorge God I hope not. I hate Yoko's "singing"

  • @Cheeso888 I know it's shite. I do hear a bit of her style in her vocal though. Bjork is a singer though. Yoko just screeched & squealed

  • @genericgeorge i would venture to say that john lennon was probably the only person yoko ever influenced.

  • @thanx01 

  • @thanx01 Believe it or not Yoko did have a nice voice occasionally, along with the caterwailing ( that Bjork does here). Not too often but it was there. It's not beyond the realms off possibility Bjork turned over Lennon's Happy Xmas War is over, and listened to the link below. There are similarities.

  • @genericgeorge Bjork's scream is actually more a jazz/r&b/soul's singer type of scream, with that growl.

  • I couldn't post the link. It's Listen The Snow Is Falling. Do a search you'll find it.

  • These dudes really come left of field for the day. A day filled with hair spray pretentiousness and puffed up peacocks and pollyannas. This was rebelliousness in a stoned funny way. Unique still today.

  • do you think flaming lips "ripped this off" with 'rainin babies?'

  • This song is just phenomenal. My life is complete.

  • i concur. bjorks wailing on this still makes me cry 25 years later.

  • aw wee bjorky yorky!!! she's a peach eh a lassie!!!!. didnt know sugarcubes were her band.she makes me smile with no effort what so ever.

  • @76skelton damn straight there mr skelton...

  • Smile.

  • That bass is absolutely cocteautwinesque

  • @6himhim Yeah, Björk's awesome. And having a talented, flaky bird isn't out of the question: get yourself a talking parrot with eczema and you can live your dream, man!

  • Great song with some great shots of the best country in the world.

  • you can hear the influence of the cocteau twins in this, great song

  • She's so....nordic.

  • Listening to this song is like watching a storm - a force of nature - passing by

    I remember seeing this on MTV Alternative around 1990, it has always stuck in my mind and after hearing it again now, it's still as good as I thought is was then...

  • i dream of havin a talented flakey girlfriend....bjork is awsome

  • @6himhim hahahahha i hear ya !!!!!

  • This is so interesting, I must watch more!

  • This was released the same year I graduated high school - I asked, "WTF just hit me?" when I saw this live on SNL and NOBODY knew. It's now 2012 and still no answer.

  • I've got really addicted to this song! It's so weird; i love it.

  • wow shes almost 50 years old now.

  • she looks like my auntie suzzy...lol...

  • Good song. What amazing vocals Bjork has.

  • fantastic is she still living on that boat?

  • Hehe ryry

  • @lMusicAndMadnessl Awww my pet, you need a cup of tea a bex and a lie down.

  • @lMusicAndMadnessl i hope for your sake that youre just trolling

  • @lMusicAndMadnessl You can learn to spell, and your grammer, wow. Creepy person alert:)

  • i love her, i love her voice, i love bjork...peace be with everyone...

  • This song is about a 5-year-old girl's sexual fantasy about her 50-year-old neighbor. Look it up.

  • @ThisHasBeenAlex

    I think you are damn right

  • Chick can sing.

  • the best part of this video is watching her her face is so expressive i could watch her with the sound turned down

  • love this song

  • Oh, Bjork. You just really have it all, don't you?

  • its been that long,i am getting old but her music never does.

  • wow.

  • Is Good!

  • thumbs up if you've come here from 5 live's up all night ;-) gr8 tune from the pixie girl & co lol

  • @whyyoulidl hahhaa same reason i came. love up all night.

  • @23kessuki cool, you prob heard on listen again or podcast. love the virtual duke box slot :-)

  • some guy from Iceland I was working with back in 1988 ask me if I ever heard of this band. I didn't tell he pulled out his cassette tape and played them for me. Love it!

  • Man... last time I saw this video... long long time ago. Incredible!

  • I remember listening to this recording endlessly. It is diverse, powerful, quirk, and Bjork.

  • HAPPY BIRTHDAY BJORK!

  • Bjork did a live Q&A on the Guardian website, someone asked what the lines "Sews a bird on her knickers" meant, and she replied "Thank you. Obviously it is about haberdashery ... and embroidery of course ..."

    Some of her answers are hilarious.

  • @steggy13 pedophilia..thats what its about. nothing 'sweet' bout the freckle lines'

  • @smithefx1 I didn't say a single thing about the freckles...

    I posted something that Bjork said in a live Q&A about a different line of the song.

  • What the hell is this song even about? "He sews a bird in her knickers"? What?

  • 7 dislikes??  You MONGS !!

  • @Flozzerable Umm no, Bjork's gone on the record about this song. You aren't even close.

  • Bjork is Iceland.

  • I do wish Bjork would have kept the door shut on what this song is about. As much as I have adored her for over 20 years (esp. w The Sugarcubes), I would prefer thinking this song is about a grandfather & his granddaughter and the sweet and lovely (non-sexual) relationship they have... when I 1st heard it in 87' or 88' that's what I thought, cuz I absolutely loved my grandfather. But I still think of it that way which is the cool thing about good songs, they are what you want them to be...

  • Those screams still hit my musical g-spot 24 years after I first heard this on John Peel's show, peace be upon him.

  • This song is about molestation? I read the lyrics and didn't really see anything to that effect. For such a beautiful song, I'd rather not associate it that way.

  • She scratches his beard....

  • i still love this song,though i preffered the origanal icelandic version.but i still havent decided whether this is a song about peodophilia or a song about childlike love.dont know still love it though

  • @MrAndplumb Or Bjork just doing her Bjorkness =D

  • AFAIK Björk has said it was a tasteless pop song about a five-year-old girl who has a love affair with the man next door, who is celebrating his fiftieth birthday. Not sure I like that theme, but I love the song. IMO it's way better in Icelandic than in English :)

  • I don't think, it's about molestation, they are smoking cigars. I do agree with those who say that "she's five years old" refers to a certain child-like innocence, or a memory of her childhood in the things she does.

  • I could watch 3:00 - 3:25 all day.

  • Comment removed

  • I want to be may birthday :)

  • So Björk either composed one of the most beautiful songs ever about the most heinous crime imaginable, or she used lines like "She's five years old" as a metaphor to describe the main character's childlike nature. I'm torn.

  • björk so hot :))))

  • TODAY IS MY BIRTHDAY!

  • @simonlimon1 happy birthday!

  • Again, and just because it really doesn't seem clear to most of those who post here, it's a song about a child that suffers abuse and the effect on this child, lines like: "Scrubs horse flies and pinches them on a line" or "She's painting huge books

    and glues them together" and "He's got a chain of flowers and sows a bird in her knickers" should make that pretty clear...

  • ooh isn't she the one who sang 'we are the cheeky girls, we are the cheeky girls'?

  • ive been on a bjork spree, i've bought debut, volta, and vespertine...but now i see i need to buy a sugarcubes album because this song is amazing <3

  • ~today is my birthda-ay~

    (if you count my freckles, i'll scratch your beard)

  • I love the song but I don't get the part with the "Lying in the bathtub".

  • yeah, this song is awesome, both in english and icelandic

  • This song leaves me speachless... It's just beauty at its truest form.

  • That is amazing, bjork is a angel !

  • la voz...

  • gracias!

  • MUY BUENO!

  • Brilliant, brings back many memories, what a voice Bjork has, classic.

  • Þ How is this letter pronaunced?

  • It's pronounced like "th" in "thing".

  • Well thank you for that piece of information!

    So Þingvellir is pronaunced like Thingvellir?

  • Yes, it is.

  • 8=====Þ~~~~~

  • eccentric use of the letter Þ

  • @Merdam9 don't be Þilly

  • Bjork is so adorable in this video.

  • "He knows how many freckles she's got" - single most romantic line ever.

  • @JoyGrenade ew, they are talking about a father/child relation.

  • @JoyGrenade you think the single most romantic line ever is about a 5 year old getting molested? that's pretty disgusting. this is a great, powerful song, but it's not really supposed to be romantic. you should really listen to the lyrics.

  • @JoyGrenade It's a song about child molestation. But if the line were in a different context, yeah I'd agree with you.

  • @JoyGrenade i hear "she knows how many freckles he's got" but on every lyrics site it says the opposite.

  • @alienalex37 yeah I heard it to. I think it's suppose to be she knows not he knows lol

  • @JoyGrenade NOT romantic when you realize it's an old man and a 5 year old child she's singing about.

  • @JoyGrenade ..if yer a pedophile

  • This song is sheer beautiful perfection in every way. One of my favorite songs of all time. I've loved this song since I first heard it back in 1988 or '89. Thank you to whoever put this up! Also, thank you Bjork & The Sugarcubes (as if they'd ever read this, but anyway) for creating such sonic brilliance.

  • dam dam dam .... voll süß, björk in jungen jahren, endlich hab ich das lied gefunden!!! ein segen, danke

  • QUOTATION:The artist must be an egotist because, like the spider, he draws all his building material from his own breast. But just the same the artist alone among men knows what true humility means. His reach forever exceeds his grasp. He can never be satisfied with his work. He knows when he has done well, but he knows he has never attained his dream. He knows he never can.

    ATTRIBUTION:Rheta Childe Dorr (18661948), U.S. journalist. A Woman of Fifty, 2nd. ed., ch. 3 (1924).

  • I love the tight, slippery, sparkly hyper-bright sound of 80s music.

    But then I did grow up with it... :D

  • Me too. The 80's was a great decade for music!

  • This song is great, and its sooo 80's which is what I love about it. I heard it for the first time on XM Radio last night, and I said to myself "Whoever does this song, they did it in the late 80s or early 90s" I just love the atmosphere that late-80s/early-90s music gives off. It feels like its filled with a lot of teen angst. I bet my aunt, who was in high school during the time of this song, loved the Sugarcubes. Anyways, I'm rambling. Great song!

  • @KickMeAndCancel OMG you are kidding - you FIRST heard it three years ago? I was about to finish HS when they did this on SNL and Mtv talked about possibly banning it because at best it's 'much older guy/young (maybe underage) girl' and at worst it's an incest relationship being described. The 'bad' was in the tone of the song, the girl 'victim' liked it. I think they played it late at night for a while.

  • Sugarcubes prevailed our music scene with thier uniqueness. Viva Björk! Shout! Shout! More and forever!!

  • im only 11 years old and i still llove bjorks song she is sooo great and still at age 42 she is still great

  • This song is really sad...but I love it. Sugarcubes= genius.

  • took me years to find this song back becouse i didnt know the titel and the group. but always knew bjork whas the lead singer! happy i found it here by pure luck. :)) a happy girl am i now.always loved this song! and still!!

  • i love her so so so much

  • God, this song is amazing.

  • amazing song

  • 1:09-1:11 LOL

  • A friend of mine once described The Sugarcubes as "Bjork does her thing, then the guy who can't sing or play the trumpet sings and plays the trumpet." I always thought that summed it up pretty well.

  • LOL, sounds fairly accurate now i've listened to some more of their stuff.

    In my previous post, i meant to put "Which means i've existed 18 years on this planet NOT knowing..."

    Silly me.

  • Right! I always thought of the other guy as a sort of Icelandic Fred Schneider from the B-52's.

  • love this song. the video makes me think of Salvador Dali

  • I've only just discovered this song and i absolutely love it.

    Which means i've existed 18 years on this planet now knowing of this fantastic track. I could have listened to it a lot in that time.

    Guess i've got some catching up to do.

  • i loved those times

  • The Sugarcubes are good - but they would've been amazing if they would have booted Einar and all of his nonsensical bullshit.

  • a favorite for all time

  • wow bjork is hot

  • What an amazing voice/talent! thats all i can manage to say at this hour, i think im going to have to watch this vid again

  • I want to lick Bjork's cute little cheeks.

  • me too

  • Thanks, watashiwanachodesu! But, anyway, forget about sunshinebutmorerain's replies and enjoy the video (after all, that's what we're here for). Besides, we're not getting any original reply from sunshinebutmorerain, who wastes his time babbling about nothing. I'd rather be in my caveman state than being a jerk like you!

    J-E-R-K! Got that?

    I hate people like you - showing off intelligence and by so doing showing your stupidity.

  • What a cute voice :)

  • I played this and the Icelandic version to death when it came out. Great.

  • it's been 20 years. this is my bjork beginning. 20 years and she is still the master.

  • @longleanleggy my sentiments exactly!!!! still makes me shudder (in a good way....) after all these years :)

  • Outstanding .. such a great song !

  • I´ve heard this song was first played around college radios around US and it broke thru into a worldwide success.

    Beautiful tune.

  • Another great band. I love them so much. I have all 3 albums. Birthday is my favourtie song. Meet & saw them play in Sydney, Australia back in the 80's thought back then this band would be huge. They didnt get as much recognition as they should of....

  • I have Sugarcubes 3 albums and one 12"; Deus, on vinyl... cherish them.... I like Bjork,since Kukl.. but the 3 albums,and Homogenic.... for me it is perfection.... thanx for up

  • such a delicious voice, she.

  • fignewtons321, what is music?. music to me is a person expressing themselfs through sounds and lyrics and instruments, no matter how it sounds, everysong, and even every sound made in the world can be classed as music, if it has meaning behind it. bjork writes whatever the hell she wants, and expresses herself so effectivly that i think she is about the only artist alive that really can make music.and i think every person that see's bjorks talent will back me up!its so inspiring and beautiful!!

  • The Sugarcubes another excellent band, they had their own musical signature and a great voice to backup the songs.

  • an instrumental

  • Which would mean it's no longer a song, but rather a composition or movement.

  • What about Metallica's 'Orion' or their 'Call of Chutulu'? What about Death Angel's 'The Ultra-violence'(godly)? What about Trivium's 'The Crusade'? These are songs.

  • As a form of slang, sure. Technically? No.

    Otherwise, Beethoven was a "song writer".

    Retarded. Which summates a great deal of casual understanding of...well, anything. It seems the proletariat are only becoming more illiterate as their numbers increase.

  • you were funny till u mention the "proletariat" then u turned pseudo-intellectual... who uses that kind of lenguage these days? college students and snobs

  • I didn't realize that language was only applicable by the measure of a popularity floor.

    That "standard" only circles back around and underpins my point anyway -- that the proletariat are indeed mediocrity defined or looked down upon.

    As far as being "pseudo"-intellectual, it's my experience that this is the answer of the halfwit in response to language and points they either don't understand, or don't like but have no substance to countervail with.

    Mediocre=normal. Feel free to bask in it.

  • It takes even more intelligence, understanding and comprehension to adapt yourself to other people that don't master your way of speaking to be understandable, not the other way around. That is one of the examples that would illustrate the word "humility", a virtue you lack. Words, if said your way, are empty. You are just showing off that you know the vocabulary, not the meaning of it(which is the thing that really matters). Pity...

  • By your standard, upward mobility in a society, or general evolution -- whether Darwinist or self-improving -- is pointless.

    Which would mean that the real ideal is to be as low as possible.

    Base idiocy (below that word's existence) as your view: to still be at the caveman stage.

    After all, if not everyone, or the "right" someone (the right nobody, in your case), can understand, then there's no intrinsic or explicit meaning at all. Solipsism 101 -- it deoesn't get any more elitist than that.

  • Taken to apex or finality, then, your argument itself, one way or the other -- with or without -- is pointless by the very nature of what it's arguing.

    I love people like you -- bright enough to present a message or chain of thought, but by doing so only demonstrating how inept and dim you are.

    Typical. Dim. Average. P-R-O-L-E-T-A-R-I-A-T

    Implosively stupid -- your mind, and your message here.

    If quality doesn't matter, it's only about popularity, then why are you watching Sugercubes videos?

  • matsuyama desu is right dude... besides proletariat means "to have sons" and to me saying that "are only becoming more illiterate as their numbers increase" sounds like you are a bit despective being in your little intellectual plateau. besides, like woody allen once said "you should meet some idiots, you might learn something". Cause, indeed, "the brain is the most overrated organ". But whatever man, peace out.

  • Wtf?

    Bjork has a beautiful and wonderful voice.

    how could you say it like that?

    well, thats your thing so wuteva

  • ah .. she bought my grandmothers house!