lyrics

When I visited my friend in Australia, she asked me question: “What do you like about K-pop?”. For me, It’s an easy question to answer; Partially because of how industrial K-pop is and therefore, how easy it is to pick apart what I'm supposed to be liked in K-pop. What idol companies purposely do to make their groups and music addicting. I like the pretty idols, the sense of friendship or family in groups, the fun music, enticing choreographies, cute outfits, etc. But specifically about the music, I like the fact that I can't understand the lyrics.

This may seem like a strange argument because one of the first things people ask K-pop listeners is "how can you enjoy music you don't even understand?". However to me, not understanding the lyrics means I can overlay any meaning or purpose I want onto a song; all it needs is the right sound. If a song is in english (or even in spanish), I'm aware of both the beat and the words. If the beat is good, it's good. However if the lyrics are cringe or something I can't relate to, it makes it difficult for me to sit through the song. Whether I fully hate the lyrics or just wish they were slightly different so that I could relate to them, they distract me, pull me out of the musical experience. The first example of this that comes to mind is when I heard Laufey's "Promise":

"It hurts to be something
It's worse to be nothing with you"

When I first heard this audio on TikTok (yes, I heard it on TikTok first), I thought the lyric would go like this:

"It hurts to be something
it's worse to be nothing at all"

Just by changing a couple words of the second line, the meaning of the lyrics changes completely. In the official version by the artist, Laufey is singing about how while it hurts to exist, it's even worse to be reduced to nothing by the person you are in a relationship with. You will always experience pain in life, but that pain and uncertainty is preferred to the complete lack of care, regard, and love that the singer receives from a partner that treats her as if she was "nothing".

In my interpretation, the meaning changes so that the first part stays the same: life comes with pain and heartache, however, the 2nd part implies that it would be worse if I simply never got to experience that life in the first place. It hurts when things in life go wrong, but it's worse to miss out on opportunity by never even trying. Or even, it hurts to live, but to resort to ending that life, to become nothing at all, would be even worse, would fix nothing. It's a feeling that I relate to much more and so I can't listen to that song without thinking about how it's just not me. 

When all the lyrics are in another language (in this case, Korean), I can simply find a song that has an instrumental, a tone, a vibe, that matches the emotion I want to express, and let words and thoughts float around my head like loose lyrics to the song. I do this with The Lonely Bloom Stands Alone by HYNN, Lullaby by GWSN, Our Garden by WJSN, and many, many, other songs. It's kind of my way of figuring out how I'm feeling with the help of music.

Now, when I told my friend this (in a wayyy more concise way), she found it interesting! However, the reason she loves songs in english is because, according to her, she can relate to every song, LOL. Good for her!