- Björk mini-FAQ version 1.0 made in 1997 [updated 22/7 1997]
- This FAQ is based on the original edition by Gideon Overhead and Stephen Anderson, and the
- additions were made by the Ultimate Intimate team with the help of friends from the mailinglist Blue Eyed Pop.
- This mini-FAQ will have the answers to the most common questions that are asked about
- the Icelandic singer Björk Guðmundsdóttir. It concentrates on the life and the questions
- about Björk Guðmundsdóttir herself, I have chosen not to insert info on subjects such as
- Icelands geography and history and other such topics. You can find that elsewhere.
Feel free to send in questions and/or answers to questions you think should be included,
or corrections if you feel we have made a mistake.
The following questions + answers are in no particular order.
-
Björk is not the name of a band, it's the name of a
very successful female singer. - She nowadays has a solo career, and choose many different people to work with
- in her different songs, both for mixing and producing.
- (Björk is also the scandinavian name for the Birch-tree.)
-
'Is that her name!?' + 'How do I say it?' -
Björk's full name is Björk Guðmundsdóttir.
- Spelled with English characters it would be 'Bjork Gudmundsdottir'
- You can write the Icelandic characters with the use of ASCII or HTML-code:
- ö = ASCII-246 / HTML: ö
- ð = ASCII-240 / HTML: ð
- ó = ASCII-243 / HTML: ó
- When translated, it literally means 'Gudmunds daughter'.
- In Iceland, tradition has it that the child takes the fathers first name as a surname.
- The special characters are from the Icelandic alphabet and they are pronounced like this:
- ö = 'ur' like in the word 'turn'
- ð = 'th' like in the word 'this'
- ó = 'o' like in the word 'hot'
- So, phonetically, it would kind of sound like "Byerk Goothmundsdottir"
- She has said herself that you'll get it right if you think of the word 'jerk'.
- You can hear a clip of Björk saying her name herself here, to get it completely right:
- Björk and Guðmundsdóttir
-
Björk comes from the scandinavian island called Iceland.
- Born in the nations capital, Reykjavik, she lived there until 1993, then she moved to
- Englands capital, London, to get her solo career started. She has lived there since then.
-
Björk is single at the moment.
- She was married once, to Þór (pronounced Thor) Eldon, the guitarplayer in the band
- The Sugarcubes but later on divorced him, altho they still remain friends.
- Up until early March 1994, She had been living with Dom Thrupp, who was an
- English DJ originally from Bristol. Dom had done remixes to both "Human Behaviour"
- and "Violently Happy". Björk met Dom three years earlier in DisneyLand, California.
- When Björk decided to move to London, Dom helped her enormously settling into
- London life as they made their home together.
- Later on she dated the french video director Stephane Sednaoui. They met when
- he directed the video for Björk's song 'Big Time Sensuality'
- He also helped her produce 'Vessel', a live video with the songs from
- her first album, 'Debut'.
- Recently, she has dated both trip-hoper Tricky and later on jungle-guru Goldie,
- but split with both of them, although rumors had it Björk and Goldie
-
Yes, she gave birth to a beautiful son on the 8th of june
1986.
- The father was Þór (pronounced Thor) Eldon, and they gave their child the name Sindri
- after the blacksmith that made the Norse mythology's god Thor's hammer.
- Thor is the god that creates thunder and lightning with his hammer Mjölner.
- The name Sindri means: 'when two hot irons meet', but also stands for
- 'sparkle around the sun'. His full name is Sindri Eldon Thorsson.
- The pregnancy was not planned for and she almost made an abortion, but she
- didn't show up to it and today she is very glad because she loves him very, very much.
-
Yes, she started her musical education in Rejkjavik's Musical
School at the age of five
- and graduated there at the age of 15. She learnt to play both the piano and the
-
'Is
'Debut' really Björks debut album?' +
-
When Björk was eleven years old she used to sing for
fun with her stepfather
- Sævar's (pronounced 'Sayvar') band in the evenings, and once she was offered to
- sing in a radio show. What she sang was Tina Charle's song 'I Love To Love'.
- After that she was offered to make an album on the label Falkinn.
- The result was the LP 'Björk'; an album filled with Icelandic versions
- of tunes such as The Beatle's 'Fool On The Hill' and Stevie Wonder's 'Your Kiss Is
- So Sweet'. Björk only contributed with one song of her own; the instrumental
- 'Johannes Kjarval', her tribute to one of Icelands most famous impressionist painters.
- The album was released in the autumn of 1977.
- The cover shows Björk dressed as a little arab princess, sitting on the floor
- in a middle-eastern environment.
- The album was very popular and made Björk famous.
- She also experienced the backside of fame; the jealousy and the kissig up to.
- Björk was offered to do a second album, but turned it down since she didn't like
-
Björk has a looooooong career of being in bands.
- After releasing her own first album in 1977, she joined her first band at the age of 13.
- It was an all girl punk band called 'Spit and Snot' that didnt last long.
- At the age of 14 she joined the jazz-fusion band 'Exodus' but all that is left of that
- is a garagetaped cassette and a liveperformance.
- Her next cooperation, 'JAM 80' only lasted a gig and nobody even remembers
- what they sounded like.
- Her next band was 'Tappi Tikarrass' (transl. 'plug the bitch's ass'), a happy pop
- group that released two albums and were featured in a documetary playing live.
- Björk got tired of it after a while and moved on to the next group; 'Kukl'
- (pronounced 'kookl',transl. 'witchcraft').
- Kukl was a dead serious group, very intense. They released two albums, and
- by this time Björk met Þór (Thor) Eldon, who got her pregnant.
- Kukl dissolved and Björk joined the band that would be the biggest success
- yet; Sykurmolarnir - 'The Sugarcubes' in 1986.
- Releasing three albums and being glorified by the media, The Sugarcubes made
- Iceland known to the whole world.
- All good things come to an end though, and in 1992 the group split up,
- Björk moved to England and started her solo career.
-
'Gling-Gló' is the title of an album Björk made
together with the famous Icelandic trio
- 'Tríó Guðmundar Ingólfssonar' in 1990. It contains Icelandic covers of old jazz-
- and showtunes plus two songs sung in english. (She also plays the harmonica in one song)
- Gling-Gló is a project Björk made during the time she was in The Sugarcubes.
- They recorded it all in only two days, no second takes, and the five musicians were
- thrilled by how Björk would make the tunes a little snappier by improvising.
- The word Gling-Gló sounds like 'Gling Glow', and it's a word describing the sound
- of a bell that chimes - like 'cling-clong', only in Icelandic it sounds like 'Gling-Gló'
- Gling-Gló became very popular among the older crowd in Iceland and is considered
-
Yes, shortly after she gave birth to her son she was chosen
for a leading role in the
- black and white movie called 'The Juniper Tree'.
- It is a story based on an old Brothers Grim tale about two girls who flee across
- the country after their mother had been burned at the stake for practising witchcraft.
- They chose Björk for the role because of her young and charismatic appearance.
- Björk has also starred in a minor roll in the movie 'Pret-a-porter', as a
- fashion model wearing Gaultier clothes and walking down the catwalk
- to the tones of her own song "Ruby Baby" from Gling-Gló.
- Björk's music has been used in many films and she has done the
-
Björk certainly had a reason that unfortunate day in
Bangkok.
- Björk had been tired and cancelled all interviews she were supposed to make
- in Bangkok. On the arrival with her young son Sindri there were heaps of reporters,
- despite of Björks wish for privacy. She tried to ignore them and their questions,
- but the final straw was when they started approaching Sindri, she acted on her motherly
- instincts and went to attack the person that was a 'threat' to her child.
- That happened to be the reporter Julie Kaufman.
- Björk got really angry, kicking Julie, pulling her hair and banging her head against
- the concrete floor. The security guards had to tear Björk away and lead her into
- the bus, where Sindri was waiting.
- (Although she almost managed to wriggle free and return to fight Julie again)
- Julie was not badly hurt, she got by with a few bruises and a good scare.
- Of course, the media blew this up to a HUGE scandal.
- Later on, Björk called Julie and apologized, sent her flowers and told her she had just
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'What's a "Björk" ?' + 'Who is in that band "Björk"
?' |
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'Where does Björk come from?' |
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'Is Björk single?' + 'Has
she been married?' |
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were to get married, which proved to be false alarm as they split up in 1996 |
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'Does Björk have any children?' |
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He is a little almond-eyed copy of herself and he is a very talented young boy. |
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'When is her birthday?' |
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Björk was born on the 21st of November in 1965, in the
sign of the Scorpio. |
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'Did Björk ever get any musical
education?' |
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flute but mainly concentrated on her voice. She was one of the only students ever to fulfill her musical education at that school at that time. |
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'Is Björk religious?' |
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Björk said: "I'm very religious, yes. But I have my
own religion. In Iceland it doesn't
makes sense two people be in the same religion. It's like have the same fingerprint." |
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'When did Björk's musical career really start?' |
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all the negative attention the first album had brougt onto her. |
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'Has Björk been in any bands?' |
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'Why did Björk split up with
The Sugarcubes?' +
'Will The Sugarcubes ever re-unite?' |
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Björk felt the group had already accomplished all it
could and now they all needed
to go on with their own separate lifes. When asked if they will ever re-unite, Björk answers that it would be hard, since one has a job to do, and one has a baby, and someone else has another project going on. |
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'What is Gling-Gló?' |
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a must-have among the Björk fans and collectors. Here are the lyrics + translations!, thanks to Leo Moran for that! |
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'Has Björk been in any films?' |
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soundtrack for the film 'The Young Americans' |
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'What happened in Bangkok?' +
'Why did she attack that reporter without any reason?' |
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been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and she was forgiven. |
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'What does Björks tattoo
mean?' +
'I heard she has two tattoos, is that true?' |
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Björk has 2 tattoos, one very visible on her left upper
arm and one that is placed
behind her right ear. The one on her arm is a circle of runes, an ancient compass. The vikings used to draw them with coal on their foreheads not to get lost, but that seemed a bit drastic even for Björk so she placed it on her arm instead. Each branch of the tattoo ends with a rune with a special meaning, and together they are a unique blend, perhaps a perfect description of its owner. You can see a pic of it here and a drawing of it here. The tattoo behind her ear is a little star or a little spider, a rememberance of her time in the band Kukl. Since it is a small tattoo you hardly ever see it in any pictures, but I managed to grab a pic of it from the live video Vessel. |
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'Who was that guy that sent a
mailbomb to Björk?' +
'Why did he want to kill her?' |
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In 1996 a man called Ricardo Lopez sent a mailbomb set to
spray acid in Björks face as she would open the package. That would have either killed her or deformed her for life. Luckily, the package never reached her home and was disarmed at the postal office. The police got a call from Lopez' naighbors, claiming to feel a foul stench coming from his apartment. When they got there they found him dead after having committed suicide. What they also found there was a videocamera and a heap of tapes dated up to the day he killed himself. In those tapes he showed step by step how he constructed the bomb and explained why he did it. Appearantly the motive was racist; Lopez, who was latino, couldn't bear the fact that Björk, white Icelandic female, dated the half scottish, half jamaican black man Goldie. Consumed by jealousy, Lopez took action and finally, to the background music of Björks song 'I Miss You', Lopez aimed a gun at his head and ended his misery. Björk
was of course very shocked and scared, and I suspect her dislike for fans
must
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'I have seen/heard of some photos
of Björk topless on the beach,
are those pictures REAL?' |
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In 1996, Björk had a concert in Israel and paparazzi
photograpghers claim to have snapped
a bunch of pictures of a topless sunbathing Björk. It has been discussed a bit and about 50% think they are real and 50% claim they are fake. The facts speaking for that thay are real are that she has a tattoo just like Björk's and that she has her hair in 5 pigtails, just like Björk had at the official photos taken only a few hours earlier. The facts speaking against it is the fact that you never see her whole face in a single picture. Sure, she has a tattoo on her left arm, but it looks a bit blurry and plump in the pictures, as if it was drawn on. Plus,
there are two different sets of pictures, one set where she has
a pink bathingsuit
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