I’m a Fountain of Blood, In the Shape of a Girl: An Alchemical Analysis of Björk’s Bachelorette pallas athena Follow Jan 12 · 3 min read

There’s an epic continuity between Human Behavior, Isobel, and Bachelorette. I’m not sure if it’s a joke or serious, probably a bit of both. It’s basically a character I invented called Isobel. — Björk

Bachelorette, directed by Michel Gondry

Isobel matures and returns to the city. Previously isolated, Isobel (Iso-, isolated; from Latin insulatus “made into an island”) crashes headfirst into the Other. A thundering train enters into the city. “Visit the interior parts of the earth: by rectification thou shalt find the hidden stone.” She prepares to confront all the people that she loves, with love. It’s a disarming confrontation. Instinct and logic clash with love. The elements are in nonstop communication in the chaos that is the city. Electro-magnetic currents.

To this Key is attributed the Intelligence of Probation, or Trial. Isobel must be tested by the city before she can reach the heights of Initiation. Isobel heeds the call for change. (The original title of Bachelorette was Shape Shifter.) Transmutation is inevitable. Hot cinders become cold soot, waters turn to whispers, branches break off trees. Isobel wrestles with the duality between reason and emotions, between intuition and intellect. Nature vs City. Temperance: the making of a properly balanced mixture.

This state of the Great Work consists in the mingling of the contradictory elements in a cauldron.— Book of Thoth

Daughter of the Reconcilers, the Bringer Forth of Life. The difficulty of this path is falling into toxic repetitive cycles. Isobel finds herself in the same story again and again. This tendency/impulse needs to be transmuted into spirals of upward growth. A tree that grows hearts.

Bachelorette is quite a confrontational song. But in the end nature wins and all the trees and plants grow all over all the skyscrapers, and it all becomes nature again. So I guess it’s some form of revenge. — Björk

So how does Isobel’s story end? Are the elements in the cauldron perfectly tempered? Have we reached equilibrium? Or is there still a struggle, an imbalance? The trees climb over the skyscrapers. Hearts grow. Branches break.

“[Isobel] has an urban/rural dilemma she is constantly trying to solve … as if !!! you could.” — Björk

Björk on the set of Bachelorette

Lest we forget: Isobel is Björk. The artist as alchemist transforms the experience into a final crystallized form: Art. Bachelorette. The brilliant rumbling second single from Homogenic. City and nature, logic and intuition, beats and strings. The story contains the storyteller. The story tells its own ending.