outer abundance

the man keeps holding up all the things she will miss seeing, and she answers with what she has seen. "you've never been to niagara falls?" "i've seen water—it's water, that's all." it's about outer abundance—all the great stuff like niagara—versus the inner abundance that comes from being able to see what's right before you. the song opens and contracts; smallness becomes bigness, the man's idea of big becomes small, and then you can't tell which is which ... it doesn't matter which character is answering or asking, it is the exultant feel of expansion and contraction, of acknowledgment and release ... and then the music opens out like sky, full of feeling, and björk's voice opens even more, in an electric combination of pain and joy—because almost any woman would care. her joy is that of a person with so little joy in her life that she's been forced to find it where she can, and both singers understand this: "i've seen it all, i've seen the dark, i've seen the brightness in one little spark." yorke and björk sing this line in a duet, west side story style, and together they give reality to lyrics that, taken strictly at face value, could be new age treacle.