Magnum opus

  (A Clockwork Orange fans, please do not laugh at the title. It’s not Russian.)

  Those of you who speak Hebrew on the Messenger with me certainly would have noticed a dramatic change about me. You see, up until yesterday I spoke exclusively in English on the Messenger, spare a few exceptions (a few of my friends have a rather poor command of English, and I usually didn’t speak it with my former classmates and my family). Now I finally switched to Hebrew.

  You see, when M. N. left me, I was quite devestated. Thus, as a form of coping with said devestation, I began speaking English, a method I used ever since my childhood to deal with stress (except when I was abroad).

  Now, I wanted to continue talking to him, believing it would be the best way to digest the new situation, to which he refused. I was mad (though mostly because of a certain wrongdoing he’d done to me), and because of that and still wanting to talk to him, I tried making contact with him every once in a while, to remind him I still exist (nothing serious, usually just random questions I had and the occasional ‘Happy [...]’, and even ‘I love you’ followed by ‘Sorry, it wasn’t for you’). I justified it by saying he'd never told me he wanted no contact with me.

  After a while, when I had some dream about him, I tried e-mailing him whatever I still had on my mind, but in Hebrew. I apologised at the end of the letter and told him not to pay attention to it. He was very mad at me, so I said a few angry words back at him, thinking my payback was complete. Then I tried asking him for a truce, to which he did not agree, and instead got his boyfriend, M. K., to tell me M. N. had no interest in speaking to me.

  After two months I tried asking M. K. (a very kind person, I must mention) to help me contact M. N. again, saying M. N. could’ve been very useful to me (he’d originally contacted me in order to help me learn Icelandic, and he also spoke French). Also, I thought M. N. could’ve been a great friend of mine, now that we have even more in common than we did, since I started learning Icelandic and listening to Sigur Rós, which he had introduced to me. That idea, although M. K. was willing to support me, was a miserable failure.

  My next attempt to make contact was a few months later, out of resentment, actually. I tried making a Facebook group in favour of sending a symbolic contribution to Iceland to show support to the Icelandic people after the Icesave catastrophy broke out. He responded with a message saying ‘Will you let me be?!’ in broken Icelandic (probably because he wanted me to be baffled after not finding it in the dictionary), to which I responded saying that I was resentful about writing to him, but I did it anyway for a greater cause.

  However, yesterday, about two months after my last attempt to talk to him, I finally sent him an e-mail. This time, I started by asking him to read the whole e-mail and replying civilly. I told him I was interested in the summer course the Árni Magnússon Centre for Icelandic Studies was offering, a course he’d attended the previous summer. I asked for his help, offering to return a favour, by a commission or helping him with Hebrew (on our first conversation he’d told me he had interest in all languages that do not use the Latin alphabet), and saying that as far as I was concerned, we never have to speak to one another again. He apologised for his previous snapping, and helped me willingly without any repayment. I thanked him sincerely, and told him that if he ever needed anything from me, he should feel free to contact me.

  I felt a huge relief from that correspondence. Though I barely admitted it to myself, I constantly thought of him (though I tried to stop), and how foolish it had been of me to lose a person who could’ve been a good friend to me over such silly mistakes. After all, M. N. is quite alright: pretty straightforward and honest, intelligent, and has rather good taste in music. I often thought of what I’d do if I happened to meet him on the street. Nowadays I’d just say hello politely and perhaps invite him for a drink.

  I’m no fool. I know he probably won’t talk to me again, certainly not in the near future. But still, just knowing this petty fight is over makes me at peace at last.

  In an ironic sense, this is quite similar to Sigur Rós’ albums Ágætis byrjun, Takk..., and Með suð í eyrum spilum við endalaust. If you listen well and read the lyrics, you can see that these albums deal mostly with childhood and innocence and lost thereof. It is presented through a story I assume is Jón Þór Birgisson’s personal biography, of the loss of a childhood friend after falling in love with him, then meeting him again for enclosure.

•   In Ágætis byrjun you can see the fetus on the cover, corresponding with the experience of birth described in Svefn-g-englar.
    Afterwards, he describes his encounter with the ‘Starelf’ (a portmanteau of ‘stare’ and ‘elf’, my Anglicising of the oringinal song and character name Stárálfur, from Icelandic stára and álfur) when he tries to go to sleep. The ‘Starelf’ seems to be a representation of his innocence, which he attempts to avoid in order to avoid recollection of its loss (echoing the song Myrkur from the band’s first album, Von). The palindromic strings seem to symbolise a repetition of the past, perhaps with an improvement―the repetition is higher.
    On the next song, Flugurfrelsarinn, he described (apparently metaphorically) his childhood games with said friend (I dare presume it was former band member Ágúst Ævar Gunnarsson, since he’s referring to his nickname, Gustur). The final lines of the song are an ominous forshadowing of the next events, described in the next songs.
    Finally, in the last song, Ágætis byrjun, he describes the new hope he has, the next meeting with his friend (which was quite awkward), and his hope for the future.
•   In Takk..., the album begins with a melody and a song, perhaps describing birth and first accomodations to the world.
    Then comes Hoppípolla, followed by Með blóðnasir, describing a rather traumatic loss of innocence. One can really imagine how the speaker is standing dumbfounded, shocked at a pain he suffered marking the beginning of his maturity, and his attempt to stand up as if everything is fine.
    At this point you can note that the musical boxes heard in the background, which symbolise idyllic childish innocence, are gradually decreasing. Eventually he almost ceases to use meaningful lyrics, hinting only by the abstract lyrics of Sæglópur at the meaning of the music, which is more upbeat at this point.
    At the end he sings that he met the aforementioned friend again, thanking him for the hope he gave him. The last song, Heysátan, is the speaker’s complete transition to an adult, represented by his use of profanity. He seems to be overwhelmed by the weight of the world he has to carry, but seems to be able to cope with it, being able to fall asleep.
•   In Með suð í eyrum spilum við endalaust, he portrays his view of the world as a child in Gobbledigook and refers to his special bond with his friend turned lover in Inní mér syngur vitleysingur, but seems to be dealing mostly with the attempt to restore his relationship with his lost friend. In the last song, All Alright, it seems the speaker actually warns an abstract adressee not to repeat his mistakes, making a reference to the song Viðrar vel til loftárása, mentioning the ‘hymn for no-one’. The song is in English, which, like the profanity from Heysátan, symbolises maturity.

  What should be noted about the three albums, as well as their first album Von, is the ironic titles they have: Von (‘Hope’) describes the world as a bleak and rather hopeless world; Ágætis byrjun (‘A Good Start’) describes a relationship which started bad, turned worse, and it’s restoration was pretty much failed; Takk... (‘Thanks...’) refers mostly to the traumatic maturing process; and Með suð í eyrum spilum við endalaust (‘With a Buzz in Our Ears We Play Endlessly’) shows how games fade away forever, leaving only a bitter feeling.

  Perhaps a subtle theme of von is present in all those albums. Some sort of ironic, fake-though-real hope. It seems that this concept is so fickle it can’t really be explained in simple words, and that is why Birgisson has to sing it and his feelings concerning it without words, transgressing beyond their limited field after having harvested the well-grown grains he grew. This just makes one wonder what unspeakable things crossed his mind when he made ( ).

  So there you have it. Jónsi Birgisson, like the rest of Sigur Rós, is a genius. But the most important thing is what we learn from this. I wouldn’t’ve bothered writing my story with M. N. and the analysis of Sigur Rós' albums had it not a point, but I can’t really explain it further than, maybe, ‘tell your friends from your lovers’, and that’s clearly not enough. Maybe the lesson is just tjú!.

  Unum diem...