Lyrics for Hyper-Ballad as interpreted by dank

Hyper-Ballad Lyrics
We live on a mountain
Right at the top
There's a beautiful view
From the top of the mountain
Every morning I walk towards the edge
And throw little things off
Like:
Car-parts, bottles and cutlery
Or whatever I find lying around

It's become a habit
A way
To start the day

I go through all this
Before you wake up
So I can feel happier
To be safe up here with you

It's real early morning
No-one is awake
I'm back at my cliff
Still throwing things off
I listen to the sounds they make
On their way down
I follow them with my eyes 'till they crash
Imagine what my body would sound like
Slamming against those rocks

When it lands
Will my eyes
Be closed or open?

I go through all this
Before you wake up
So I can feel happier
To be safe up here with you



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dev0n
01-13-2002

 Rated  +3 
this is one of my favorite Bjork tunes.. i think it's about sorting through your shit in order to get over it and be happy with the one you're with.. dealing with anger, perhaps.. haven't QUITE pinned it's meaning down yet, but for some reason it makes me so happy..

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belgiums
02-17-2002

 Rated  +1 
This is my favorite song. It's incredibly sad, but I feel so happy when I hear it. I think its meaning is very sad. I'd say it's about someone in a bad relationship. They throw objects down this mountain to help imagine how painful it would be to commit suicide. Then can feel happier about being with that other person.

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angelique
02-17-2002

 Rated  +4 
I never considered this song in terms of an abusive or bad relationship--in fact, I just signed this morning up so I could provide an alternate view. :)

I've always related to "Hyper-Ballad" from the perspective of a kind of wild, sometimes destructive person who's found love...which is this very fragile thing. You're almost a *danger* to it in your wildness. The morning ritual described in the song is a way to act out and still be in touch with your anger, your destructiveness...and makes you *okay* to return to the stability, sweetness or gentleness of the relationship.

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Mighty J
06-06-2002

 Rated  0 
My view of Hyperballad is similar to angelique's. I also see the throwing things off the cliff as a way to sublimate destrutive impulses, including self-destructive or suicidal impulses. There's a distinct sense of carefulness, when she "walk(s) toward the edge" for example - my visual image is slow and cautious. I also get a sense of wanting to keep this ""way to start the day" private - whether to revel in the beautiful view that early in the day, or to protect her ritual from being ruined or misunderstood. I just love this song.

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1 Reply  · 
Kworb
07-09-2002

 Rated  -1 
I think this song is about releasing your aggressions and complaints about a person (spending time working on a car, going out to drink with friends, not doing the dishes) but not at the person, in private. The person in the song somehow needs to do this to still be happy with the significant other. "Imagine what my body would sound like" would then mean, what if our relationship was over? How awful would that be? Of course, this is Björk, so she turns a normal subject into a really cool song. I love it, my favorite by her.

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theklik999
07-28-2002

 Rated  0 
i think it means that she goes out there on the cliff to put herself in danger and imagine what would happen if she fell off so that when shes with her man she will feel safer with him and make her more happy around him
thats just me though , matt

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AlmostFreeSpirit
09-13-2002

 Rated  0 
this song makes me happy because it reminds me of my little rituals. my little secret obsessions. it reminds me of the times when i couldn't sleep. i would stay up all night thinking and feeling frightened. then in the morning right before sunrise i would walk towards the egde of a lake barefoot waiting for the sun to say hello as i watched the steam rise off the lake. i usually took pictures. the transition from night to day changed my mood completely. it was my little secret when no one else was awake.

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in_our_hands
04-18-2003

 Rated  +1 
This is oneof Bjork's best songs. I think it represents not sadness, but, well, love.

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Cheesepickle
05-04-2003

 Rated  0 
Bjork said on her website this song was about how everyone has the side nobody else knows about. its a big thing, especially in relationships. ahhhh bjork, what a genious

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ihatedanger
06-23-2003

 Rated  0 
i can completely relate to this song, and i totally agree with almostfeespirit, it reminds me of the strange little rituals that i do behind closed doors to make myself happier, this whole secret life and the thoughts that i have when no one is looking. this song makes me sad...

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1 Reply  · 
Smiley75220
04-28-2004

 Rated  +1 
THis song is totally happy and optimistic as Bjork herself is. There is actually nothing negative about this song, excluding the imagining her body crashing part. She goes through these daily rituals before her sleeping lover wakes up to kind of frighten and entertain herself, so when he wakes she is much more appreciative of him, she feels safer, and happier to be with him. Someone like Bjork has a big imagination and I can see her doing this on a day to day basis, plus she lives in Iceland what else is there to do!

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beckah G
05-21-2004

 Rated  0 
I feel this song is about someone who's had a really really bad messed up life. When the person finally finds love however, everything is perfect, but they can't pull themselves away from their former life and anger inside of them from their previous pains, so in private they release them by throwing things down in the morning. However, they then go back to their lover in which the person feels so much more grateful to be with them.

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Phrogex
05-25-2004

 Rated  0 
This song is about how people are made happy through worldly desires such as material items or relationships with peole. To throw that away is like throwing yourself away--you become so attached to it, that it becomes almost a part of you. The environment you grow up with is the environment you know and exist in. Throwing some old relationship away is similar to throwing yourself away like a suicide. Not a negetive suicide though, just a loss of yourself. You can't say personally that you're not atached to your daily rituals and your items.

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TappiTikkarrass
11-12-2004

 Rated  0 
Its aobut the little things you do in relationships that help it continue. Then soon how the song does to a suicide thing? Maybe sometimes that the only way out im guessing. I love this song....

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freespiritedartist
11-25-2004

 Rated  0 
I had a vision this morning (I've never heard this song) of being in a beaten-up ute with boxes of snakes in the back... I have lost control of the car and jumped off before the snakes devoured me and the ute drove itself off a cliff. I then got into this other car which was brand new, shiny blue... the terrain changed into lush valleys, and there was a beautiful white dog in the passenger's seat. I got in the car, started driving and kissed the dog... and as soon as I kissed it it turned into this guy I just recently decided I like... as soon as it did I freaked out, and returned to my vision.

I'm not sure how but does this relate to the song in any way.. being about/around the cliff, and all. I have also recently had past-life regression therapy and kinesthology (aura-cleansing- a process by which the subtle bodies are restored, healed and re energized) and have done alot of 'throwing away' my 'old stuff'. I am tend to re-invent, and transform myself alot... my personality is in a state of constant change. I'm always looking for greener pastures. And there is definately a danger in getting overly involved with someone before a relationship has even gotten off the ground... energetically. That is my dilemma.

Throwing away the body is like, throwing away the ego/personality. Of course you are left with the soul. The eyes are the windows to the soul. Bjork's lyrics are so simple yet so awesome, so broadly-focussed.

And if you gaze long enough into the abyss, the abyss will also gaze back into you.

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SillyLittleGirl
12-19-2004

 Rated  0 
Have you ever read the books Beowulf or Grendel? That's what I always think of. I know its strange, by old teacher said the two books always reminded him of Hey Jude, which is nothing like hyper-ballad.

Anyway, Because of these books I interpret the song as a searching for meaning. In Grendel, the monster was obsessively participating in ritualistic attacks on the mead hall. His attacks were prompted by his disgust with mankind, and although they were the result of his conciseness of the futility of man, they were an act too similar to bring him satisfaction. By the end of the book, at his death, he was still blind to this and it brought him to a sad state of ethical nihilism.

I know this is a really odd. But that's what it reminds me of, loosing consciousness of existence as a result of participation in ritualistic activity.

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Widm
03-03-2005

 Rated  0 
To quote Bjork:
"Basically, 'Hyper-ballad' is about having this kind of bag going on and three years have passed and you're not high anymore. You have to make an effort consciously and nature's not helping you anymore. So you wake up early in the morning and you sneak outside and you do something horrible and destructive, break whatever you can find, watch a horrible film, read a bit of William Burroughs, something really gross and come home and be like, 'Hi honey, how are you?'."

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dhelm
03-03-2005

 Rated  0 
I dont really believe the song is some ritual she does to make living comparable to pain of falling off a mountain and thus happy. I think it is fairly literal, one of those things you can do and feel so much peace being alone. Just letting thoughts flow and getting away from everything, and then returning to her normal life, and having the ability to be happy because she has had her needed time alone. A ritual of sorts. And the suicide thought is just something accompanying the thoughts, its all like a deep breath.

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quiffporn
03-28-2005

 Rated  0 
I love Bjork, for many reasons, not least, because despite the occasional few bit of media interest, she has never sold out. She makes the music that she wants to make and that feeling of 'purity of spirit', shines through in her music.

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striderwho
06-22-2005

 Rated  0 
I've only heard the Twilight Singers' cover of this song - which Bjork apparently approved of - and I can relate to it pretty well. I'm in a very comfortable relationship and sometimes I feel the need to do something destructive and horrible just to "get it out of my system", like throwing stuff off a cliff. It's very cathartic, I'm sure! I've never heard these feelings voiced in such a way in a song, so I might have to make an effort to get to know Bjork!

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tigersroamfree
10-04-2005

 Rated  0 
when i hear it I feel it's about this woman who is trapped in a relationship (they are high up in a fairy tale castle on a mountain) and everythings perfect- too perfect and this makes her nervous, so she throws things off the mountain to kind of convince herself that everythings better up there.

Or maybe that shows that there's no means of escape?

I think Bjork was thinking about human psychology and the funny things we do.

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tigersroamfree
10-04-2005

 Rated  0 
nah i changed my mind about escape. not to convince herself that things are better up there but that there are some horrible things in the world and she needs some kind of shock factor for her life.

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Bamboo
12-12-2005

 Rated  0 
Bjork talked about this song in a interview once
If I remember right this song has something to do with destorying things you hate so you feel happy or something like
xD

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meandjulio
01-07-2006

 Rated  0 
This has to be one of my favourite Bjork tracks (and that is saying something). I love the idea of doing something destructive or violent or just imagining it, so as to be able to appreciate the nicer things in life or just so you don't go completely insane. You gotta let you thoughts run free.
Love the line "when it lands, will my eyes be closed or open?" It's like when you stand waiting for a tube on the way to work and imagine what it would be like to throw yourself infront of it. I'm not talking about any truely suicidal tendencies here, that would be too easy. To me its about letting your mind ruminate over as many ideas as you possibly can. Negative and positive, it's all part of the beauty of life

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tigersroamfree
01-12-2006

 Rated  +1 
and also you know.. the tile of the song 'hyper-ballad' ballads being about love, hyper being over the top.

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