This song is just a masterpiece. The beat/instruments are fascinating. It sounds like you're in the pit of a gently thumping heart, listening to the the blood coursing through the veins. Morbid, yes...but BEAUTIFUL. The song gives me chills.
I think the devil line represents problems, situations, and "haters" that some couples have to deal with. Sometimes, you fall victim to those things ( the devil collects it with a grin our love in a ball of yarn) He'll never return it...they accept the mistakes or bad decisions they made with eachother and although thay can't change the past (he'll never return it), they can start fresh (so when you come back we'll have to make new love)
Another great song..
I think that this song means: there are two people in love, but when they separate for awhile, the love they feel for each other starts to unravel, dissapear, and they become estranged due to the seperation. This has actually happened to me before. If you love someone, but lose contact with them for awhile, you become weird strangers. So I think the devil is just the force that takes the love, that is where the love dissapears to. And the devil in my case would be, human nature, how you react to someone you used to know but havent seen or spoke to in awhile. It's always awkward. Anyway, that love will never be returned, it's gone, lost to time, so you have to make new love.
Basically, relationships decay if there is no contact with the partner.
This is an amazingly beautiful and insightful song which is about how you need to constantly renegotiate the terms of how you mediate with each other in love, as you are both also always reconfiguring your individual selves each day. Love is not unconditional - rather it's a fragile thing that can only grow if each partner keeps working and accepts this risk of change, risk and dynamic reconfiguring.
My take on this song is that, obviously, it deals with a long distance realtionship. Her (for the sake of Björk writing this) love falls apart while her partner is away. Her love for this person becomes "strands"; strands of which can connect the two over their distance. However, the devil (could perhaps be the devil himself, conflicts, or another lover) steals these strands (mischeviously). He doesn't plan on giving them back- signifying a loss of innocence or something irreplaceable. And this is where my interpretation differs from, I'm sure, many of those around me. When she says "we'll have to make new love" she could mean she wants to be with the partner again, and restrengthen their love. But it could also mean she wants to make "new love" with someone else, telling them both to move on. The strands
this is probably my favorite bjork song of all time. :B
Probably the most romantic lyrics I've heard, though I would never direct them at anyone; they're too special!! BjorkySpearzer, you are totally right with that description.
To me this song is about infidelity. When she is neglected, she comes undone, giving her heart to people she doesn't love, she finds it doesn't compare. Amazing song.
Yadarfyn, when she says "we'll have to make new love," she probably isn't referring to sex. She says the devil collects their love and will never return it. But that doesn't mean she (and they) can't make it again. Defying the devil in the honor of love. See Orange_Morendo's comment, too. Amazing song.
I lost someone and I have come into terms with my self to never be in a relationship. I had been intimate with a couple of people to I guess cope up with the situation and I feel like crap every time. I think what Bjork is referring to "devil" here is the sin of having sexual interaction with somebody than your significant other. Blaming it to the devil as a form of defense mechanism.