After a wonderful long weekend of much partying and mischief, but precious little sleep, I'm feeling a bit zombiefied this Sunday evening. So i turn to everyone's favourite Icelandic multi-instrumentalist post rockers Sigur Ros to make everything all better again. Their Takk LP from last year is just sublime, and the highlight is the almost ubiquitous 'Hoppipolla', as heard on trails for the Beeb's Planet Earth.



The vocals are simply wonderful, but not being a particularly fluent speaker of Icelandic, I looked up a translation of the lyrics here. And look how cool they are!

Smiling
Spinning 'round and 'round
Holding hands
The whole world a blur
But you are standing

Soaked
Completely drenched
No rubber boots
Running in us
Want to erupt from a shell

Wind in
And outdoor smell of your hair
I hit as fast as I could
With my nose

Hopping into puddles
Completely drenched
Soaked
With no boots on

And I get nosebleed
But I always get up
(Hopelandic)

And I get nosebleed
But I always get up
(Hopelandic)

I love that 'Hoppipolla' means 'hopping into puddles'. It all suddenly seems to make sense! And there's nothing better than a really superb cover version to remind you just how great the original song is. Luckily for us, We Are Scientists have done the impossible and produced a version of 'Hoppipolla' that is almost as perfect as the original...