SONG INFO

"'Human Behaviour' is an animal's point of view on humans.
And the animals are definitely supposed to win in the end."

Written by Nellee Hooper and Björk. Released in the summer of 1993 (June), one month before the album 'Debut'. This single launched Björk her international solo career after some years with the Sugarcubes. The video, directed by Michel Gondry, became an instant classic and was rewarded by MTV as 'Best Breakthrough Video'. "Human Behaviour" was the birth of a lyrical imagery collaboration, his unique perceptions of Björk’s music and his art of storytelling are unique to the music video world, which resulted in 6 videos.

see more at the Human Behaviour page on the Greatest Hits special

SONG INFO

"I think I wrote it in my living room in Iceland and sang it into my dictaphone. Later, by accident, we were going through sounds and I found this broken bottle sound. It wasn't intentional but it sounded great."

'Venus As A Boy' was written by Björk and produced by her long-time collaborator Nellee Hooper. When it became time to turn it into a single & music video, she approached Sophie Muller, a british video director that has done music videos for several big names such as Eurythmics, No Doubt and Blur since the early 80's.

see more at the Venus As A Boy page on the Greatest Hits special

SONG INFO

Cover of an old jazz standard. Words & Music by Johnny Burke & Jimmy Van Heusen.Previously recorded by artists such as Frank Sinatra, Bing Corsby and Chet Baker.

SONG INFO

"I've got a lot of courage, but I've also got a lot of fear. You should allow yourself to be scared. It's one of the prime emotions. You might almost enjoy it, funny as it sounds, and find that you can get over it and deal with it. If you ignore these things, you miss so much."

"Big Time Sensuality" was Björk's fourth single and music video, released in november 1993. Written by Björk & Nellee Hooper, produced by Nellee Hooper. The video is shot on location in the streets of New York in 1993 by Stéphane Sednaoui, featuring Björk dancing back and forth and singing on the back of a moving truck.

see more at the Big Time Sensuality page on the Greatest Hits special

SONG INFO

"Violently Happy is about when you're a junkie on exchanging emotion, not at one but at the level 200. That thing. And then the person goes away and you really miss someone. When you're with that person you're really peaceful because you get what you need back and you both give everything you need to give. And that person goes away and all that exchange is not there so you get your kicks elsewhere, you end up running on rooftops in blizzards, drinking 97 tequilas just to feel. You know what I mean. So it starts off really happy then the longer the person's away from you, it starts getting self-destructive."
i-D, #154, june 1996

SONG INFO

'ANCHOR SONG' was written in summer 1990, when Bjork left her boy Sindri with a child-minder for a while and set out across Iceland on a "freedom thing". She rode her bicycle around the island with the express purpose of visiting all the hundreds of churches she'd heard about.

Since Iceland's Christianity is based on a crafty get-out clause (the Viking Assembly said they'd pretend to worship Jesus if they could remain Pagans on the quiet), the religious places Bjork found were the wildest.

"Lots of farmers had these little churches, like just one wooden room the size of a bedroom, and they're really over-decorated. The farmers would make these naive paintings of the baby Jesus, really smiling, and they've got his beard all wrong, and there are all these stars in the ceiling. Completely beautiful churches, and they've all got harmoniums.

So I used to bike between them, and have my little Walkman and go and ask the farmer if I could play his organ. I expected a no from everyone, but they all said yeah, why not. I'd play for two hours and then aim for the next church. I wrote a lot of tunes, and `Anchor Song' is one of the ones I finished. I'd recommend it as a holiday."
- NME, 25 december 1993

SONG INFO

"I watched the film and wrote 'Play Dead' based on the main character. It was actually fun because the character in the film was suffering and going through hardcore tough times and at the time I was at my happiest. It was quite liberating to sit down after writing a whole album to write from someone else's point of view"

Written by Björk, David Arnold & Jah Wobble. Produced by David Arnold & Danny Cannon. Additional production & remix by Tim Simenon. The video was directed by Danny Cannon.

see more at the Play Dead page on the Greatest Hits special