"Andrá" by Sigur Ros

The power of Music.
The power of Sigur Ros.

Like the people in this video, I have my own Sigur Ros story:
It was late summer of 2001 and my mom had been diagnosed with end-stage lung cancer and given six months to a year to live. A few months later, not wanting to be around for his wife’s death, my dad shot himself in the temple. I took care of my mom as best I could, but the grief of my dad’s death and watching her slip away took a toll on me. One afternoon while shopping in a homeware boutique looking at pretty objects to take my mind off things, I became aware of a song playing on the store’s sound system. The sound and texture of the song caught me and I stopped at a table of handmade ceramics. I stood frozen, listening to a song so gentle, so lulling, so ethereal, so otherworldly, I literally did not know what was happening to me. An organ and music box contrasted with a primal, roaring…a rhythmic pinging sounded like sonar…and the singer, with a voice of an angel, kept singing what I heard as “It’s you…it’s you…it’s you…” This song did not come from this world, it did not belong in this world. It was huge, cosmic, echoing. It shook me, comforted me, spoke to me about my grief. It said: there is something bigger, there is something else, it’s okay, everything is going to be okay. It was the sound of compassion. I can’t recall but I must have wiped away my tears and gone to the counter to ask what was playing, and found out the song was "Svefn-g-englar" (“Sleep Angels” or “Sleep Walkers” in Icelandic) and the band was called Sigur Ros. The feeling of the song stayed with me and I can still feel it 22 years later when I hear it. It is as if it holds the liminal idea of being born and dying at the same time. When I discovered the song’s lyrics translated in English, and learned that the chorus of what I thought was “It’s you” is actually Jónsi, the lead singer singing “Tjú, tjú, tjú,” an Icelandic cooing sound traditionally used to calm a baby to sleep, it all made sense. I have always said if heaven had a houseband, it would be Sigur Ros.

https://sigurros.com/