sigur ros - olsen olsen

Before I start, I'll say that this song is best enjoyed with a good pair of headphones in a quiet, comfortable place. This is a song to be immersed in.

I first heard about Sigur Ros back in high school, about a year or so after the album "Olsen Olsen" is on - Agaetis Byrjun - was released. I was an impatient kid, and not being able to understand Jonsi Birgisson's Icelandic/Nordic/invented-language crooning in a pitch higher than humans should really be able to comfortably hit didn't make Sigur Ros an instant favorite of mine. It took a little while for their music to grow on me.

So, when I came back to Agaetis some years ago, I was trying to start fresh, start from a clean slate of more patient listening. I wanted to give it a fair shake, considering how well-reviewed the album was.

If you're tired, this song is great to fall asleep to. While you're awake, it's a fantastic exercise in imagination. Layers of sound, backed by a bass line that's reliable but never intrusive once Jonsi, the drums and the synth come to the party.

Really, this is a song you don't want translated. At least, I don't, anyway. I don't really want to know what's being sung about. It just seems so wistful yet fond, anthemic and triumphant (especially by the song's crescendo) that whatever the subject is, it's probably best-served never being converted to English.

The finale, after a chorus of brass stumbles over itself into a fade of people talking - a town square? A big family dinner? I'm really not exactly sure - and a lone tin whistle chirps the melody back before fading into nothing itself. It's sort of symmetrical with the very beginning of the song, where Jonsi's reverbed vocals lead into the song's bass line. One neat little package.

The song is a story. It has its beginning, middle and end, plus the bonus of a happily ever after in the form of the whistle. It's a rare kind of story, where you don't need to hear or understand the precise words to just know everything's going to be all right.