Pagan Poetry

"I'd always wanted to work with music boxes but it was waiting for the right occasion. I'd been collecting them and stuff. The main thing was that I wanted to write my own songs in music boxes. In the beginning, the music box company weren't very excited. They'd made wooden boxes for eons and I wanted see-through plexiglass. They couldn't get their head round it - they were like 'Why?' They wanted to make the plonky sound softer with wood but I wanted it as hard as possible, like it was frozen. In the end, they said it was the best thing they'd ever done." "It's about wanting to communicate, for sure. It's less cocoon-ish than the rest of the songs [on Vespertine]. It's definitely wanting to tell someone something." "We discussed how to do something with the moving image that was a mirror of what was happening musically. . . . It had to have a different look from the video footage and from the digitally altered video footage. I knew it had to look as luscious as possible,” Chaudoir says. “It’s stripping away the artifice and the digital effects, into the raw image of Björk.” Pagan Poetry is written and produced by Björk. It is the second song to be taken off her fourth studio album "Vespertine" as a single. The video to the track is done by Nick Knight who previously photographed Björk for the Homogenic cover image. Production: Gainsbury & Whiting. Director of Photography: Simon Chaudoir. Written by Björk Published by Universal Music Publishing Produced by Björk Additional Production by Marius de Vries Mixed by Mark "Spike" Stent Programming by Jake Davies, Björk & Marius de Vries Bassline by Björk Music Box Arrangement by Björk Adaptation for Music Box by Jack Perron Harp Arrangement by Zeena Parkins & Björk

[Verse 1] Pedalling through The dark currents I find an accurate copy A blueprint of the pleasure in me [Chorus 1] (Swirling black lilies totally ripe) A secret code carved A secret code carved (Swirling black lilies totally ripe) [Verse 2] He offers a handshake Crooked five fingers They form a pattern Yet to be matched [Chorus 2] On the surface simplicity (Swirling black lilies totally ripe) But the darkest pit in me And it's pagan poetry (Swirling black lilies totally ripe) Pagan poetry [Verse 3] Morse coding signals (signals) They pulsate (they wake me up) They wake me up (pulsate) from my hibernating [Chorus 2] On the surface simplicity (Swirling black lilies totally ripe) But the darkest pit in me And it's pagan poetry (Swirling black lilies totally ripe) Pagan poetry (Swirling black lilies totally ripe) (Swirling black lilies totally ripe) [Outro] I love him, I love him I love him, I love him I love him, I love him I love him, I love him I... (She loves him, she loves him) This time (She loves him, she loves him) I'm going to keep it to myself (She loves him, she loves him) This time (She loves him, she loves him) I'm going to keep me all to myself (She loves him, she loves him) And he makes me want to hand myself over (She loves him, she loves him) (She loves him, she loves him) And he makes me want to hand myself over (She loves him, she loves him) (She loves him, she loves him) (She loves him, she loves him) (She loves him, she loves him)