Björk felt grief similar to when ''a person dies'' when she split from her boyfriend.

The 49-year-old singer was inspired to write her new album 'Vulnicura' after breaking up with her partner of 14 years, artist Mathew Barney, during which she felt ''a classic process of grief''.

She said: ''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.''

The iconic musician - who has 12-year-old daughter Ísadóra with Mathew as well as a 27-year-old son, Sindri, from a previous relationship - explained she originally tried to repress her feelings of heartbreak because she thought they were ''predictable''.

She continued: ''The stages that you go through are the same [as a death], almost like chapters in a book. At first I fought it, because I thought it was so normcore. Predictable. (sic)''

However, she soon succumbed to her feelings, which was when she decided to express her emotions through songs to get over her former lover.

She told The Guardian newspaper: ''But then it was like, what are you going to 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. There was nothing in my subconscious that would let me fast-forward and just write a disco song.''