Interview with Björk

While working on her nascent record Vespertine, Björk has finally found a certain peace and some strength in her private hiding place.

- What made you start your new album with the phrase "You wake up and the day's already spoiled"? It isn't a very optimistic way to look at life...

- Well, it was winter, I was spending all day at home and that's when you concentrate on the things that went before. And those things aren't always good. But I'm a very responsible person, and the album could start like that and then express hope. I shouldn't write music unless I have some hope to give.

- Is there anything you've decided to change about your life?

- Yes. I think I'm very self-sufficient, sometimes even too much. I tend to feel that if something goes wrong, it's my fault. So I feel responsible for the things that didn't go right in my life. Even when I wasn't really to blame. I think everything's my concern, and I'm responsible for everything that goes right or wrong. I have an excessive sense of responsibility.

- Why do you think that's so?

- I had three little sisters and three little brothers. Being the eldest sister is a natural role for me. And I've always tended to avoid escapism; to me, everything had to be real and strong.

- What about now?

- I believe you can create that hiding place anywhere. You can make your own bud in a train, in a bathroom, at somebody's house. That's my idea of heaven. Heaven doesn't exist, heaven is like a holiday brochure. But if you really believe in it, it becomes real.
"(...) I'm a very work-oriented person, so the best for me is to do something. And if I go on holidays, I'm always active."
"(...) If there's something in me that must transcend the world, that something is my songs."

- Once you said in an interview that someday, when you grow old, you'd like to play the piano late at night in a house close to the sea. You said that was your dream.

- It is, and that's the way it'll be. My grandmother's a painter. I've always loved her and I still do. She keeps a perfect equilibrium between complete selfishness and total carelessness. My grandmother always had time for the others. I've always admired her.

- Some time ago not only did you have to suffer a bomb threat but also someone broke into your mother's house in Spain and refused to leave before seeing you.

- When you become a public person, you run that kind of risk. I don't take it personal, I think it's part of the job.

Stefan Woldach / IFA and Clarín.
Translation by Carolina Friszman