Having grown up listening to the Icelandic alien woman that is Bjork, I have always been fascinated by her unusual imagery, enticing voice and conceptual lyrics. Always managing to shock and confuse with her progressive videos, when 2001's Verspertine came out its second single "Pagan Poetry" did just that.
The song itself is a bizarre 5 minute ethereal masterpiece and the video is no different; stated as a story "about a woman preparing herself for marriage and for her lover," it was directed by prolific fashion photographer Nick Knight and featured, sometimes graphic, blurred out images of ejaculation, fellatio and skin piercing. Bjork appears in a in-body pierced wedding dress designed by the late Alexander McQueen, which covers only the bottom half of her body, leaving her pearl-adorned breasts free and in plain sight.
MTV banned it in the United States, only later showing the unedited version on MTV2 during a "20 Most Controversial Videos" countdown.
When asked about the video, Nick Knight explained "I gave her [Bjork] a Sony Mini DV Camera and asked her to shoot her own private scenes [...] She wanted me to make a film about her love life, so I merely gave it back to her and said, 'Film your love life.'" Genius.
