Something I've never seen anyone point out about Bjork's album Vulnicura is how each song explicitly references and transforms a previous song she wrote about love, and her relationship with Blarney in particular.

So... I'm going to be the one to point it out! Song by song! /1

STONEMILKER. Lyrically references and cancels out Mutual Core right away ("Mutual co-or..dinates...") and then does the same with the lyrics to Who Is It ("Who is... who has... who can...").

LIONSONG. Musically references Pleasure Is All Mine. (The openings to both songs are melodically near-identical.)

Pleasure Is All Mine relishes in giving unconditional support to one you love. Lionsong hits the limits of that: when the person you're giving to is inaccessible.

HISTORY OF TOUCHES. Lyrical dissolution of sexual bliss of Cocoon. That most memorable moment: "When I wake up.... gorgeousness! He is still inside me!"

History Of Touches: "I wake you up... / ...our last time together." Cataloging that final intimacy of what began with Cocoon.

BLACK LAKE. The opening music of Black Lake and Enjoy is near-identical.

"Enjoy" describes angry conflicted desire for pleasure; was written before the marriage. Black Lake is about total heartbreak. A return to pre-marriage self of Enjoy; but negated, complicated. Not the same.

FAMILY. The opening of Family is literally distorted stretched-out samples from All Is Full Of Love.

Musically, it takes the iconic strings of Love, fragments them into pizzicato chaos for the middle, then rebuilds into a new, shimmering texture. This maps to the lyrics too.

NOTGET. So... I have conflicting thoughts on this one.

On one hand, it's lyrically the inversion of I See Who You Are, in a straightforward way. (love/death)

But musically, my gut says the distinct opening notes + timbre are recalling the harmonies & sound of "Storm", written/

/for her ex-husband's film Drawing Restraint 9...

but I can also hear it as musical reference to (and negation of) the opening to "Pagan Poetry"...?

I will not be authoritative on this one because I'm really not sure I'm connecting the pattern here correctly!

So I'll move on:

ATOM DANCE. A clear sister-song to Unison! This one is pretty blatant. Very similar openings, musically. And lyrically, it takes the ideas of Unison (being in sync with a lover) and, finding it no longer true, claims a new, healing unison with herself, & with the world around her

MOUTH MANTRA. Another sister-song: to Mouth's Cradle. (Even the titles!) Dissonant where Cradle is euphonious, lyrics are opposite too.

Cradle frames lover as gracious support to her joyous mouth. In Mantra, same mouth is now stoppered. She has to unplug it herself, monstrously.

QUICKSAND. Ah! This one's my favorite — and so clever. This one... references All Neon Like briefly in the lyrics, but then. Then, it samples a totally unrelated song (Apologies, by Spaces) and builds new material on top of it.

Which makes SO much sense, because/

/this is the song that is about processing the tragedy, and moving *forward*, toward acceptance, transforming that "black lake" of grief into "embroidered air". Aka, processing her grief by turning it into song. Aka: the whole album we just heard. So/

/this is the song that both considers this whole project of song, looking backward, and also looks to the future, beyond the mourning self. Thus it's the only song on the album that doesn't need to live inside what she's sang before: it can step forward, creates something new.

SOME ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS:

* I love how Atom Dance, which revises Unison, literally has Bjork's friend and collaborator join in for the second half, so that she's singing a duet of completion (versus loving in solo, with Unison)

* Mouth Mantra turns more similar to Mouth's Cradle the longer it goes — specifically it starts recalling the vocal textures of Cradle within its late minute-and-a-half. (Those sudden choral swells! Possibly sampled from Cradle tbh?)

I think it is so very neat that she did this

* Also, when Bjork toured for Vulnicura, she'd perform the album + a couple other songs, to close. A lot of the songs she'd close with would be songs referenced in this thread. Not exclusively, but.. in a way that fits. (She also liked closing with Wanderlust, and Bachelorette!)

Anyway that concludes this thread.

I am not a Bjork expert and really don't know a lot of her songs, and I'm sure there are references I missed. I just like it when artists do a cool secret layer like this! So I wanted to share my appreciation for this nifty thing she did.