Björk: I was mortified by music

Björk felt "embarrassed" by the lyrics on her latest album at first.

The Icelandic singer released her ninth record Vulnicura at the beginning of the year, which explores the end of her 14-year relationship with artist Matthew Barney. Listeners get a sense of the emotions she felt during the difficult time by listening to her tracks, with lyrics such as 'Did I love you too much? / Devotion bent me broken.'

"[It's] a classic process of grief. Apparently it's pretty similar if, if... a person dies, or you lose your job, or get a divorce. Obviously they are differently – what do you say – devastating. I'm not going to compare divorce to the death of a child. There are other things that are far worse," Björk explained to British newspaper The Guardian.

"But then it was like, what are you gonna do? And I think something in me, like a survival instinct as a songwriter, knew that I would never get to the end bit if I didn't go through the other bits, musically...

"And I did feel really embarrassed about these songs in the beginning."

Luckily she has a lighter outlook on things now and admits the record is full of so much sadness because her subconscious wouldn't let her "fast-forward" and write happier, disco songs.

She questioned releasing the tracks at first but after playing them to a friend Björk realised they weren't as "horrible" as she feared

"I was like, OK, it isn't as messy as I thought it was. It is messy, for sure, it's just that there are different types of mess. Some you're up for sharing and some not," she added. "And protecting my family was obviously the most important thing. That was priority number one, two and three. But then number four was maybe this sort of hunter in me, this other person who looks and evaluates."