The International Olympic Committee commissioned a song by Björk specially for the 2004 Summer Olympics opening ceremony. The singer revealed that the committee asked her to do a kind of "Ebony and Ivory" or "We Are the World" type of song, which are "smashing tunes" according to her, but she thought, "'Maybe there's another angle to this'. When I tried to write an Olympic lyric, though, it was full of sports socks and ribbons. I ended up pissing myself laughing". Then, she called Sjón, an Icelandic poet who had previously collaborated with her on songs such as "Bachelorette" from her fourth studio album "Homogenic" (1997). When she said to him that they would need something "suitably epic" for the Olympics, the poet even took a short course about Greek mythology at Reykjavík University. "Oceania" was the last song recorded for "Medúlla". Björk said about the song: "I am incredibly honoured to have been asked to write a song and sing it at the Olympics. The song is written from the point of view of the ocean that surrounds all the land and watches over the humans to see how they are doing after millions of years of evolution. It sees no borders, different races or religion which has always been at the core of these [games]".