You're listening to Song Exploder,
where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made.
I'm Rishikesh Hirway.
My name is Björk, and I'm here to talk about Stonemilker on my album Vulnikura.
In January 2015, Björk released Vulnikura.
She described it as a complete heartbreak album.
and in November, she released Volnokura Strings,
a companion album that stripped away the electronics.
In this episode, Björk breaks down the making of both the original version of Stone Milker,
as well as the Strings version.
She traces her writing and recording process for the track,
and her reasons for wanting to make a second version.
It's about someone who's trying to get emotions out of another person.
The whole song is emotionally about wanting clarity, wanting simplicity,
and talking to someone who wants things to be really complex and foggy and unclear.
And you're saying, OK, I've got clarity.
So, you know, want it or not.
So it's like sort of celebrating simplicity and clarity.
I was walking on a beach and I was kind of walking back and forth and the lyrics kind of came along kind of without me really editing them.
The strength of this album really is just simplicity and this kind of thinking out loud feeling.