Your Sweat Is Salty, and I Am Why (Interview)

I got asked to do a song for the Olympics, which I was really honoured, and I actually had a melody in my head for about a year before that, that I was very, I don't know how to say it, proud, where I was thinking, where on earth I would find a place for that sort of grand-ness, and singing for all the athletes at the Olympics sounded like a good occassion.

So I started writing the words and I just ended up turning with up with really lots of rubbish bork jokes you know kinda like "Pull up your socks" And, and you know [Giggle] "Pass me the sphere", you know, [Giggle] "Running with fire", Du-du-du-du, "I am the tiger" So I decided maybe I should pass this [Giggle] to Sjón, and ask a Poet who's Icelandic who is a friend of mine since I was a teenager and is very good at all things epic.

So I came up with another idea, maybe, that was kinda try to be slippery, but, to be the ocean, that goes around all the countries and doesn't see boundaries or religion, or you know, all this kinda nonsense. So I called my friend out and I said, "How about writing a song where it's song where it's song in first persona from the ocean to the people?" And he was like, "Okay, that sounds like a challenge", and, yeah. And I think he also even managed to even top it and weave into the story of evolution of man where they start as little fickle things in the ocean and become jellyfish, and they walk on the shore and become humans and do all sorts of things and do Olympics and stuff.

And he even started to, the end line is, where the ocean is talking to the athletes saying "Yo, you might be doing all these amazing things, but when you sweat, your sweat is salty, and I am why". [Giggle]