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Lyrical analysis is one thing I've been wanting to to more of on this blog, regardless of whether anyone wants to read that kind of thing. I told myself that I'd look at lyrics in my next Probabilistic Jukebox entry, and look what song popped up. Iceland's Sugarcubes sang in English, but it wasn't their native language - add to that Bjork's distinctive singing style, and you have a kind of music that doesn't really force you to pay close attention to lyrics. But I think that there is something interesting going on in "Leash Called Love", one of my favorite songs from the last Sugarcubes album, Stick Around for Joy.
It's one of the few Sugarcubes songs I can think of where Bjork sings the first half of the song, and Einar Orn "sings" the second half. It suggests a specific kind of lyrical structure that becomes confusing when you look closely at each singer's words. Bjork's first two verses are admonishing a girl who is in an abusive relationship with a man - she first implores the girl to leave him and then, in the second verse, recommends emphatically that she "do him IN." The chorus lyric connects the concept of love itself to abuse and unfair power dynamics, which may explain the departure in the song's second section. Here, Einar departs from the verse-chorus structure somewhat, leaving Bjork to sing the chorus's wordless vocal hook while he speaks from the point of view of the victim. I'm uncertain whether he is speaking as the girl addressed by Bjork earlier or whether he is drawing a parallel to a separate relationship where he is a male victim. It's not clear, but it is kind of interesting, and Bjork's vocal on this song is one of my favorites from her time in the Sugarcubes.
"Leash Called Love" by the Sugarcubes
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