Play Dead

To me this song is about being in an emotional pain or depression where death seems like a relief, an escape. Imagining it, playing things out in your mind gives a sense of closure and that stops the hurting.

I'm talking from personal experience 25 years ago. When I heard this song back then, I was really surprised how perfectly it described what I was going through and actually doing, lying on the floor of my flat imagining I'm dead. That dark period is long gone but I don't often listen to this song. It's beautiful, but very dark, at least to me.

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i think this song talks about.. how shes pushing people away.. how she doesnt wants their company.. and the whole deal with it..is that.. u push away..what u dont wanna hurt..probably the things u care the most..and before they leave u..u just leave them 1st..as in for u not to get hurt by them.. when she says she plays dead..its when she plays the whole i dont care card..the thing is..she cares too much.. humanly possibly..shes scared of the hurting..of the pain..yet she embraces it..cuz it makes the whole process easier..on her.. its a real contradiction cuz when bjork wrote this one..she wasnt goin through any disturbing phase..actually she was happy ..but..she needed to do a song..that would put the tag to the character of the movie ..

This song is sad. Its about being in a feeling the worst pain and pretending to be dead so it can go away.

Darling, stop confusing me, with your wishful thinking. Hopeful embraces, Don't you understand? I have to go through this,

seems to me like it's about a girl whose lover wants all this stuff to happen like maybe getting married and she knows it will never happen and it just hurts her more to think about it so she just wants all the pain to go away by playing dead. pretty sad because it's so true sometimes. sometimes your lover means well in the beginning and they just end up lieing to you and leaving you, and you knew it would happen all along.

On her website this is what she said the song "play dead" means and why she wrote it:

I'd just written Debut when I was asked to do this song for 'The Young Americans'. I watched the film and wrote 'Play Dead' based on the main character. It was actually fun because the character in the film was suffering and going through hardcore tough times and at the time I was at my happiest. It was quite liberating to sit down after writing a whole album to write from someone else's point of view.

The particular character was pretty fucked up, you know. In the film, he had a girlfriend who just wanted him to be happy and in love and he just couldn't get his head 'round it. It was just me trying to imagine what he would say to her. Things he never actually said to her in the film but things he would have said to her

i think this song may be about when you block out your emotions and pretend you are somewhere or someone else...then for a while...short while u forget about the "hurting"...anymore ideas? i could be wrong..... i also think that this song is writen for to someone as an explanation

I agree with petrol_addict, except I think Bjork's character in the song is trying to fool everyone but herself, but ends up believing that she should be "playing dead". She focuses so much on the pain that she forgets everything else.

the song could be about trying to involve yourself in a relationship with a person who is very ambiguous. they're hot, then cold. on, then off. so confused and befuddled, she just has to stop sometimes. lay down and play dead, in a sense.

All your comments are true but it's not a personal... it was commisioned for a movie. she said that she was actually quite happy when she wrote because she just finished Debut. and she was glad to write a song from another persons perspective.

I agree with what isobel was saying. the character is afraid of loving agaiin. she thinks it will be easier to not love at all than to love and be hurt.