Oceania was the first single from Björk's fifth studio album, Medúlla. The song was heard for the first time at the opening ceremonies for the 2004 Olympics, in Athens Greece.
"I am incredibly honoured to have been asked to write a song and sing it at the Olympics . The song is written from the point of view of the ocean that surrounds all the land and watches over the humans to see how they are doing after millions of years of evolution. It sees no borders, different races or religion which has always been at the core of these games." - Björk (Aug 13 2004)
Björk decided to call on Sjón Sigurdsson, Icelandic poet and previous lyrics-collaborator. Needing something epic, Sjón took a course in Greek mythology, and then wrote these lyrics for Oceania, a kind of aquatic sojourn and the last song recorded for Medúlla.
DOWNLOAD OCEANIA
Olympic performance
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The dress Björk wore was designed by Greek designer Sophia Kokosalaki, who designed most of the 200 dress patterns for some 30,000 costumes worn at the event.
Björk's dress was special. 30,000 square feet of shimmering material unfurled from her feet and spread over the heads 20,000 athletes who'd filed into the Olympic Stadium infield, to reveal a map of the world.
One breath away
from Mother Oceania
your nimble feet make prints
in my sand
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
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
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
The video treatment was done by Lynn Fox. Two versions were completed; one for the backdrop for the Olympics performance, the other, with Björk, geared towards television.
We see Björk plunged deep in the ocean, surrounded by dancing sea orchids and jellyfish, which are precisely choreographed around the song. For this video, Björk spent eight hours in make-up, having tiny gems placed on her face.
The Mill was then bought in to emphasise the glints that beam from them. Initially, a Flame spark was used to select and highlight glints automatically but the results proved too random. So, for a more organic look, The Mill's Paul Marangos ended up spending two days in Flame inputting glints by hand, using live action glints as reference.
You can see both version of Oceania here