Classic songs: ‘Human Behaviour’ by Björk.

Icelandic singer, songwriter, composer, producer and actress, Björk was one of the most influential musicians of the 1990s and 2000s. She has been called everything from electrifying and a pop-polymath to an eccentric and gorgeous weirdo.

Born in Reykjavik, Iceland, 1965, Björk Guðmundsdóttir was introduced to a bohemian and musical life very early on. While it is widely reported that Björk began her music career at a young age, surrounded by hippy music and an avant-gardist spirit, it was never really a truly calculated move on her part to break out as a teenage popstrel. (For the record Björk release an album in 1977 when she was eleven, consisting of some original material but mostly popular covers translated into Icelandic. Later on in life Björk chose not to include it in her official discography.)

In her teens Björk took it upon herself with her peers to invent a wholly original Icelandic sound with punk bands like Spit and Snot, Tappi Tokarrass, Kukl and The Sugarcubes. As lead singer of The Sugarcubes between 1986 and 1992, Björk achieved unexpected international attention and fame, especially in the UK.

Earning the title “The biggest rock band to emerge from Iceland,” The Sugarcubes according to Rolling Stone, “drew notice for their offbeat songs and singer Björk Gudmundsdóttir, an elfin womanchild with a powerful, keening voice.” The Sugarcubes breakout hit was their 1987 singe Birthday. Fans of the Icelandic band also consider Hit, Deus, Coldsweat, Motorcrash and Walkabout as several other tracks among their finest songs. 

When The Sugarcubes disbanded in 1992, Björk embarked on a solo career, which was always going to be on her own terms. Many songs come to mind when considering Björk’s unfettered artistic genius during her early years. Songs like Human Behaviour, Venus as a Boy, Big Time Sensuality, Play Dead and Violently Happy, taken from her debut album, aptly title Debut (1993), all felt very avant-garde at the time (and still do) as Björk mashed up styles like house, trip-hop, jazz, Bollywood strings and electronica. 

While Big Time Sensuality, the infectious house-pop song about friendship, connections and overcoming fear, stands as arguably the album’s best track, one cannot ignore the playful, spirited and somewhat giddy, Human Behaviour, which introduced Björk as a solo artist to the world.

Sonically, Human Behaviour is heavily influenced by Ray Brown Orchestra’s 1970 song Go Down Dying. Björk and her producer Nellee Hoper sampled the song and used the drum loop giving her own song a truly wondrous charm. Lyrically, Björk wrote the song based on how she felt as a child in Iceland. She was often more comfortable being on her own rather than being surrounded by her peers and chaotic adults. Taking this into account she turned the song on its head making it instead about how animals might view humans as unpredictable beings. 

Björk once said in a rare interview that “When I wrote Human Behaviour, that was actually a melody that I wrote when I was in The Sugarcubes and we never finished that song. I was, in a way, pretending a little bit that I’m David Attenborough, and I’m looking at the humans like I’m an anthropologist, and I’m trying to work out what sort of their behaviour is.” 

On Human Behaviour Björk comes to the conclusion that, “There’s definitely, definitely, definitely no logic/ To human behaviour.” And she’s right to point out our contradictions. Of course, it won’t be the last time Bjork would explore and detail human and societal contradictions. Her music is littered with stories about the human experience.