Be One of Us #30 - "Army of Me"

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Geez, time flies when you are doing a countdown of songs with "of" in the title, in this case, 50 of them, in no particular order other than what I'm feeling that day. We are at #30: "Army of Me" by Bjork. Icelandic vocalist Bjork, former singer for The Sugarcubes, had written "Army of Me" in 1992, but chose to shelve it rather than include it on her first solo album, Debut (although she did perform the song as part of the setlist during that tour.) The tune finally saw a proper release on her 1995 album, Post (her third.) Written about her brother, who had some personal issues at the time (laziness, marijuana, a slacker, basically,) "Army of Me" finds Bjork in "take charge" mode, urging her sibling to take control over his own life, because she's tired of standing by and watching the disaster, and is more than ready to deliver a kick in the pants ("And if you complain once more, you'll meet an army of me," she sings. Tough love from someone that most everybody saw as just being some pixie weirdo.) Mixing a sample of John Bonham's drums from the Led Zeppelin classic, "When the Levee Breaks," with a cool, sinister industrial-techno thing, "Army of Me" hit #1 in Bjork's native Iceland, and charted in a total of 17 countries (the tune didn't make the Billboard Hot 100, but did reach #21 on that magazine's Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart.) And it was used in the movie Tank Girl! After the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake/Tsunami, Bjork placed a request on her website, asking for remixes of "Army of Me." She received six hundred of them, after which she and co-writer/keyboardist Graham Massey (of the band 808 State) chose their favorite 20 and put them on a compilation, Army of Me: Remixes and Covers, with the proceeds going to UNICEF to assist that organization's relief efforts in the region. As of 2006, the album had raised approximately 250,000 British pounds for the cause. No word on whether Bjork's brother ever got his act together, however. (Info verified by Wikipedia)