Recommendation #6: Björk

This time I bring a poetic analysis with the recommendation:

One breath away
from Mother Oceania,
your nimble feet
make prints in my sands

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

Sweet like harmony
made into flesh, oh
You dance by my side,
children sublime

You show me continents,
I see the islands
You count the centuries,
I blink my eyes

Hawks and sparrows
race in my waters
Stingrays are floating
across the sky

Little ones,
my sons and my daughters, oh
Your sweat is salty
I am why
I am why
I am why
Your sweat is salty
I am why
I am why
I am why

Our story starts with us being able to breathe out of the ocean, developing feet — although they weren't quite nimble at first — and crawling to the shore. On the third stanza, humans are reminded of their similarity with the rest of the kingdom Animalia (assuming the pearl represents the oyster); indeed, about 70% of the genetic code of every animal is the same. When the melody changes, the lyrics regard the geological scale in which the personified ocean would count time. At the end of her speech, Mother Oceania claims she is still somehow a part of us: we came out of salty water billions of years ago and now it comes out of us; what a fine symmetry.

Oceania is not just a trippy Nature-driven song — as we should expect from ms. Guðmundsdóttir. It's an ode to Evolution, to the biosphere's ability to spread all over the planet. I like to see it as a compensation of creationist deity-praising music. More than religion, science can and should be fodder for art.

P. S.: I read some people saying the backing "vocals" throughout the song are supposed to be dolphins, which is a nifty touch.

P. P. S.: here is an energetic cover by the unfairly obscure Spiritwo.