“I was very lucky. I had all these options at my fingertips and I thought I would be a coward not to use them [to produce her new album ‘Post’ herself – Ed]. I don’t want to be a hero or anything. Generally, I find doing things on my own very boring. I find a really big difference between people who are happy and nourished and confident and people who are egoistic. Being egocentric is something that I try and avoid. It’s not a good way of being. You end up unhappy and so does everyone around you. [At the last moment, however, she decided that she wasn’t ready for such a step, that she needed help. She approached Nellee Hooper, who told her to do it on her own, while offering to be her “safety net,” if all else failed – Ed]. That was the most generous offer anyone has ever made me. The lyrics of one of the songs, ‘Cover Me’, are about that.”Björk (1101)

“‘Big Time Sensuality’ was actually about when I first met Nellee Hooper. I think it’s quite rare, when you’re obsessed with your job, as I am, when you meet someone who’s your other half job wise and enables you to do what you completely want… so it’s not a sexual romance.”Björk (1102)

“I’m a polar bear and I’m with 500 polar bears, just tramping over a city. The lyric is about people who feel sorry for themselves all the time and don’t get their shit together. You come to a point with people like that where you’ve done everything you can do for them, and the only thing that’s going to sort them out is themselves. It’s time to get things done. I identify with polar bears. They’re very cuddly and cute and quite calm, but if they meet you they can be very strong. They come to Iceland very rarely, once every 10 years, floating on icebergs.”Björk (1102)

“That’s a lyric about being in a relationship, and after a while, say three or four years, you repress a lot of energy because you’re being sweet all the time. So I wanted to set it up like a fable, something that happens over and over again. It’s about this couple who lives on a cliff in the middle of the ocean, and they live in this house, just the two of them, and she wakes up really early, about five in the morning, before anyone else wakes up, and sneaks to the edge and throws a lot of things off: old rubbish, car parts, bottles and cutlery. And she imagines what it would look like if she herself were to jump off. Then she sneaks back into the house, back into bed, then her lover wakes up and it’s “Hello! Good morning, honey!” And she’s got rid of all the aggressive bollocks. The chorus goes, “I go through all this, before you wake up, so I can feel happier to be safe up here with you.””Björk (1102)

“I went into my diary and found a complete lyric about receiving a compilation tape in the post from a friend. It’s a very personal thing. You’re pissed off with things generally. You save it until the evening, and after you’ve had your bath and brushed your teeth, you go to bed and take your Walkman and put you headphones on and you fall asleep. The lyric is a letter to that person. I had this idea to do a song that is like a worship of headphones.”Björk (1102)

“Isobel has grown from a spark, she hasn’t got a mother or a father, and as she grows up she realises that the pebbles on the forest floor are actually baby skyscrapers. And as she grows up, becomes a woman and gets tits and everything, the skyscrapers take over the forest and she finds herself in a city. She’s got all this impulse and intuition and it crashes with all the people around her, and she doesn’t know about morals and good behaviour, and she falls in love with all the wrong people, and she means well, but in the end she has to isolate herself.”Björk (1103)

“I guess in the lyric I was talking about the pregnant suicide bomber and trying to understand what drives her; and that sentence just seemed to fit [Nature has fixed no limits on our hope – Ed].”Björk (1104)

“When I started to make Volta, I wanted to make a record that was about people finding the roots of everything in the world. For me, that meant going down into the roots as a female, and taking the stand in 2008. It’s funny, but it was the first time for me to take the idea of being a woman on. Not like it was when I started becoming a woman when I was 13, 14, but about me taking the pulse the second time around. But this record also had a lot to do with having a little girl. I was seeing the world through her eyes, hearing her asking me questions, trying to find answers. Because it’s different bringing up a girl rather than a boy. And the time between having Sindri [her 21-year-old son – Ed] and my daughter… in that time, things have gone a bit backwards for women, and I wanted to address that.”Björk (1105)

“I mean, it is a tongue-in-cheek song for me, people don’t get that. I’ve said this before but when I was writing I thought it was hilarious — it’s like if you’re friend is heartbroken by a girl and she’s upsetting him, you can shout at him, declare independence! Don’t let her do that to you! Like those country and western songs with really strong lyrics, but kind of punk, when the words don’t fit to the song. People don’t realise the humour in those clashes I do!”Björk (1105)

“Even songs like ‘Declare Independence’, for me, are about humanity and about how one person should not abuse the next one.”Björk (1106)