#doolset lyrics

[handssofmidas]

" Time will pass

And someone will be forgotten

Things will flow however they like "

Time, like a wave, will wash away like the ebb tide - But still, don’t forget to come find me.

[rapsukkaz]

[ from a flaming flower of fire to a flower of the field

from boyhood to eternity ]

[theharrowing]

When Yoongi said

알다시피 내 목소린 좀 꼴림 As you know, my voice gets them horny

남자든 여자든 랩으로 홍콩을 보내는 유연한 내 혀놀림 My flexible tongue movement that makes people reach orgasm with my rap, men and women alike

did straight people really still assume he was heterosexual, because.......................................................................

[comics-books-encyclopedias]

Listening to Outro: Her these days

[mu-saic]

//Reflection

One of my favorite albums (in the ever) is mono. by RM. 

I recently learned that RM, the pseudonym of Korean musician Kim Namjoon of BTS, sounds like aleum (아름) a Korean word for beauty. I’ve always thought that he has a beautiful way of writing about life, about making the mundane seem special. 

I consider this album (or, a, I’m pretty sure he refers to it as such, playlist) a forever friend. Do you also have an album that you think of as a best friend album? An album you can listen to when you’re happy, when you’re sad, when you’re everything, when you’re nothing? One that you’re convinced will always be your favorite? This is mine! It’s a friend for every situation, but especially for when I am especially in need of comfort that isn’t from myself. 

It takes me exactly one mono.-listen to walk to my favorite spot on the river, I like to sit there for another mono.-listen, and then walk back home. It takes three mono.s for what I think is is sufficient self-not-reflection but more like for remembering that I’m a person... self-actualization? It’s a good unit of measurement for the things I like to do (three mono.s is around an hour and 15 minutes)! And about 6/7 of a mono. to walk to the duck pond I live near... 18/7 for the total..

A lot of the songs that RM makes as a solo act feel like they’re putting my loneliness into words, in turn making me feel less lonely. An Oh. I’m not alone in feeling what I feel. 

Right now, I’m overwhelmed with the lyrics in Life, a song off of his first project, which is self-titled. Why would there be no antonym of loneliness? Perhaps it’s because we never have a moment of no-loneliness until we die (translated from the Korean lyrics 외로움의 반대말은 왜 없을까 / 사람은 죽을 때까지 안 외로울 때가 없어서일지 몰라 via https://doolsetbangtan.wordpress.com/2018/06/28/life/). My mind always go to this lyric when writing and thinking about my loneliness and my ever-present desire for companionship. 

His song Reflection I think perfectly reflects the utility of his music in my life. It’s about the thoughts he has while at a park that he visits when he is overwhelmed or sad or both. Although I will genuinely listen to his music whenever, like as in to the what would you bring with you on a deserted island question I would bring mono. .... his music is perfect for these moments when I need to force myself to confront my thoughts. Journalling music! 

슬며시 다가와서 나의 손을 잡는 fear and the fear that gently approaches me and holds my hand

세상은 절망의 또 다른 이름 [ireum] The world is another name for despair

나의 키는 지구의 또 다른 지름 [jireum] My height is another diameter of Earth

나는 나의 모든 기쁨이자 시름 [sireum] I’m my whole happiness and my worries

매일 반복돼 날 향한 좋고 싫음 [sireum] They repeat every day, the likes and dislikes directed at myself *The above four lines end-rhyme (-reum).

(the above five lines copied from https://doolsetbangtan.wordpress.com/2018/06/16/reflection/)

I’m always struck by the rawness of his lyrics... like this fear that he writes about... what he writes gently approaches me and holds my hand! And my heart. And my soul. And my everything.... thank you....

There are many, many, many RM lyrics that I carry in my heart! And I could go on and on...

The song that I think is my favorite of his (at least, off of mono.) is called uhgood. The title in Korean is 어긋 (pronounced as uh-geut) which means: “(1) fall short of expectations and (2) miss each other (by taking different routes)” (quoted from https://doolsetbangtan.wordpress.com/2018/10/25/uhgood/). It’s really interesting that there is this contrast between the English title and the Korean title; uhgood is “good” yet uhgeut seems to be “bad.” 

Equal parts dreamlike (sound) and real (lyric), this song is so beautiful. To me, it is about the pains of self-discovery; My ideal and reality, they are too far apart. But, I still want to cross the bridge and reach me. The real me, the real me (translated from the Korean lyrics 내 이상과 현실 / 너무 멀고 먼 / 그래도 다리 건너 / 내게 닿고 싶어 / 진짜 내게 (yeah, yeah) / 진짜 내게 (yeah) via https://doolsetbangtan.wordpress.com/2018/10/25/uhgood/). 

*A note that there is sooo much that a simple translation like this can not capture. There are often translator’s notes that come with the lyrics. Such as, at the bottom of the lyrics quoted above, the translator mentions that due to “I” and “you” sounding similar in the Korean language, one could hear the above lyrics as being second-person instead of first-person. Again, the relatability! This is part of why this song touches my heart so much. 

A lot of his songs talk about self-hatred, like Reflection, which repeats the phrase “I wish I could love myself,” thus I am drawn towards his sentiments of hope. 

I can’t let go of me who I know as myself, because you, in my head, are so whole like this, because you are so perfect (translated from the Korean lyrics 내가 아는 나를 난 놓아줄 수가 없어 / 내 머릿속의 넌 이렇게 온전한데 / 완전한데 via https://doolsetbangtan.wordpress.com/2018/10/25/uhgood/, the translator notes that the “you” used here is the ideal “me” that RM is referencing).

All of my favorite RM lyrics (there’s more ... like the whole song of Trivia: Love and forever rain) are so touching and meaningful to me in that they seem to capture a picture of my heart, and feel like a warm hand on my back. 

[voidbebe]

"Even if our steps might be in different frequencies, I’d like to walk on this path with you."

— still with you (2020)

[ikusayu-no-hana]

joon literally wrote trivia: love for kiden i think

[bluepetercat]

Everglow (2020) "빛나는 순간" dir. So-Joon Moon // Mary Oliver, from House of Light: Poems “Lilies" (1992) // Everglow (2020) "빛나는 순간" dir. So-Joon Moon // Ocean Vuong // Mary Oliver "Wild Geese" // On the Beach at Night Alone (2017) "밤의 해변에서 혼자" dir. Hong Sang-Soo // Alone by Jimin (translation credits: doolset lyrics) // Nobody by Mitski.

[beautifulpersonpeach]

I relate to that anon who misses your Jimin posts. I always wondered why you wrote more about non-rapline members than the rapline who you biased. Esp JM, JK, V, and sometimes Jin. But now that Jimin is your bias I notice you posting more about Taekook than Jimin so now we’re Jimin deprived 😭

It sucks cos I like how you write about him. I’ve been going back to your posts about Face and even your posts from before his releases Face. You were one of the first bloggers who said Jimin’s music was the one you were most looking forward to. When other people doubted him you shut that shit down with “he’s Park Jimin for goodness sake”. Is there anything you can add about his music making process though BPP? Anything at all? Maybe some screenshots like you just did for Minimoni? Thank you.

***

Sigh. Y'all...

Okay, I'm going to use a lifeline and 'phone a friend'. We'll call her N.

She's the friend I've talked about before. Below is the result of a conversation I had with N before BTS's chapter 2 began. Consider it an abridged summary of why we were looking forward to Jimin's solo work the most, as well as what we think about his creative process. I'll tie it back to FACE at the end...

--

Jimin writes the dopest melodies.

Dis-ease bridge (I still can’t believe he came up with this in less than 5 minutes)

Blood, Sweat and Tears

Friends

Christmas Love

Promise

The first time I heard Dis-ease, before I even knew Hobi wrote most of it, I just knew it was a Hoseok song from the disk-scratches and very retro old-school hiphop vibe. And so I expected it to flow a certain way, and it did. Until it got to the bridge. Dis-ease could have been a very different song and you really see this if you listen to the version with JK’s bridge which keeps a somewhat faster tempo and lower notes.

Jimin’s bridge, quite literally, elevates the whole song - it starts in a completely different octave. If you’re actually singing this song, like singing out loud, when you get to the bridge you’re forced to belt out “SICK AND TIRREEEDDDD” and “THROUGH THE FIREEEEE”, up high, real loud, with heart and feeling. The melody Jimin composed in 5 minutes is simultaneously soulful and energetic.

This is the same with other melodies he has composed such as Friends and Blood, Sweat and Tears, and others.

Jimin writes some pretty dope melodies that make me want to sing out loud.

He seems to write plain but beautiful and honest lyrics

Jimin has said writing lyrics doesn’t come easy for him and I think this is because he writes the way he speaks.

Even Namjoon who we all know writes incredibly beautiful lyrics has said this too, but I think Jimin might want or aim to write more artistically like Namjoon, but (I think) he writes lyrics the way he speaks, which is plainly and directly but carefully and very honestly. He sparingly uses metaphors unlike Tae and RM who can wonder about snow and flowers individually or uses colors like Blue and Grey to convey struggling with burn out or how the world pauses at 0 O’clock.

When people write songs the hope is to convey certain ideas or emotions. If those things are very personal, heavy or dark, songwriters often use metaphors or analogies in their lyrics to communicate them. This way, the songwriter’s personal feelings are somewhat obscured and protected by artistic interpretations. If you write literally however, there’s nowhere to hide. Everyone knows exactly what you’re thinking and I think this is why Jimin struggles with lyrics.

Jimin writes very literally and this personally appeals to me a lot. Take for instance, how Jimin wrote Lie:

“순결했던 날 찾아줘 Please find me who was innocent

이 거짓 속에 헤어날 수 없어 I can’t free myself from these lies

내 웃음을 돌려놔줘 Please bring back my smile

Caught in a lie

이 지옥에서 날 꺼내줘 Please take me out of this hell

이 고통에서 헤어날 수 없어 I can’t free myself from this pain”

(translation credit: Doolset)

There’s nothing metaphorical about this. He’s literally going through hell and he tells you that very plainly as much. The only way to maintain some ambiguity in the whole song is to never mention what the Lie actually is. And so he never does.

*

Jimin seems to write more songs than we think. For example, when talking about how Friends came to be, he mentioned he was working on 3 songs which he casually showed to Bang PD just for kicks while they were touring three years ago. Two of those songs were mostly finished and the most incomplete song was the third one which PD liked most and worked with Jimin to complete, and that song became Friends - track 15 on the Map of The Soul 7 album.

For their BE album Jimin mentioned how he wrote three new songs for the title track but they weren’t selected. So, Jimin has likely just got these songs sitting somewhere, much like how Yoongi was sitting on Telepathy for years before releasing it with BE.

Whether we’ll ever hear these songs is another story, but if he ever does release them I’m sure I’ll be singing my heart out alongside him.

--

Of course, since Jimin released FACE, you can judge for yourself how many of these points hold up. It's especially striking for me how Jimin wrote the lyrics in Alone, Set Me Free Pt 2, and Face-off mostly literally. For anyone who hasn't read it yet, here's some selected posts on FACE.

[clareeewolf]

just in my feelings, listening to mono. as one does.

all lyrics by RM | tokyo; There's something in the water by Victor Clement; seoul; Summer Landscape, Krumau by Egon Shiele; moonchild; Still Life with Two Sunflowers by Vincent van Gogh; badbye; Nicki Zimov; uhgood; Spirit hold, part 2 by Holly Warburton; everythingoes; After the torchlight procession... by Adolf von Menzel; forever rain; Morning on the Seine in the Rain, Claude Monet; all translated lyrics from doolset.

[kimtaegis]

{Kimtaegis’ GFX Breakdowns, Ep. 1:

↳ SARANG/SARAM; a namgi web weave}

better late than never – I’ve mentioned that this year, I will start writing my thought process behind my graphics down in actual posts instead of hiding them in the tags of a self-reblog, both for myself and those who are interested in that, so here we go!

the first more graphic-y post of the year was a little birthday present for @outroindigo, who told me that namgi’s dynamic as well as their solo music are extremely important to her, so that was the starting point basically! I initially wanted to use a web-weave-like layout for yoongi's birthday post this year, but thought that it just fit too well for this project, since including lyrics and website screenshots made it so convenient to explain the topic. the main source of inspiration but also material source was doolsetbangtan, an incredible blog that not only translates bts' lyrics, but also gives extra insights and explanations of their word plays, references to reoccuring lyrical themes and even links to other media that are connected to the songs' content. they were a huge help, most elements that ended up in the post had been already pointed out under their sites for trivia: love, people, and people pt. 2 respectively, I pretty much only had to follow the mentions and use them!

my post starts with the first half of a quote from namjoon from his november 2016 vlive and ends with it as well (in the caption) to tie the whole set together. I tried to organize the elements in a way that even someone who has never heard of the whole live/love/sarang/saram thing can easily follow and understand it, while also maintaining a pleasant overall layout and colour change (planning that took quite some time, I tell you). the trivia: love lyrics panel is a screenshot I took from spotify, I just changed the background colour to fit. underneath the people performance gif is an excerpt of yoongi's billboard interview from july 2023. the rest are screenshots directly from doolset, gifs from yoongi's iu's palette interview and selfmade visualisations of lyrics, etc. I decided against listing all the content elements in the caption - as usually done for an actual web weave - because some media was used multiple times and it would've felt weird to repeat it in the listing.

regarding more stylistic choices, I decided on a blue and warm yellow-orangy colour scheme, both because kari's current blog layout is this beautiful blue, but also because I associate blue with both namjoon (especially after indigo, obvs) and yoongi (his painting from 2020 instantly comes to mind). since 'love' on the other side is often portrayed as something warm and cosy, red/orange/yellow became the contrasting colours. I tried very hard to make all the colours look as consistent as possible and to match the shades of blues to kari's blog colours. funnily enough, there always seemed to be either something blue or warm-toned in the actual content, which was pretty convenient. besides the pseudo-screenshots for some of the lyrics (typed out in fonts that are typically used in books), I created three graphic elements as well, simply because I know sweet kari appreciates them and I wanted to have a personal kimtaegi touch in it. the first one is a visual representation of people pt. 2's lyrics. I always thought of faceless silhouettes when thinking of people, and combined that with yoongi's painting style (you see that painting means a whole lot to me lmao). since I can't really draw, I used paintings I found on pinterest (you can find the whole board in the source of the og post), masked the person and the heart out and changed their colour (which is not as easy as it sounds!). the fading effect was achieved by carefully going over both until I liked how it looked (which again, took embarrassingly long). the second graphic element is again a direct visualisation of the lyrics used in the panel: I digitally cut up a picture of namgi, in multiple rectangles that are supposed to represent the letter ㅁin saram. I actually printed the picture out first and cut it up with scissors, but I couldn't find a good way to scan it back in :( so digital cutting it was; please note that the edges of every snippet are rough, I always try my best to make it look as realistic and tangible as possible which is time-consuming but adds a nice touch in my opinion.

the collage effect of this graphic is inspired by works of anthony garace. his artworks are stunning, and I do love a good mixed media effect! also it just fits perfectly with the lyrics... among all these straight lines (-> the rectangles), [I find/ is] my love, my love, my love (-> little snippets of a picture of the two). the flowers in the last graphic both represent yoongi (the lotus flower cutout, referencing his amygdala lyrics about blooming like a lotus flower, which is also achieved by love, y'know :( ) and namjoon (the wildflower; yes it's an actual blue wildflower, I researched! it's a wild blue flax; referencing his same-named song). I used an actual photograph of it and made it look like a painting with photoshop magic. it also was supposed to look just a litte like a cynotype as used in his album design.

again, look at all those nice rough edges in that panel, this is all added intentionally. I hope everyone who saw the post also caught the teeny tiny animation of the hangul letter ㅁ to ㅇin the text on the left side; quite literally eroding edges <3

the last gif of ot7 was perfect to round it all up, referencing the lyrics above quite emotionally, starting off with the two of them, then them being joined by the rest....sigh. I will be honest, there have been a few tears falling onto the keyboard. I hope this set can convey namgi's beautiful lyricism in an interesting, artistic way. it's easy to get inspired by their art, it definitely makes you appreciate everything they do even more.

[epiphanytear]

Lyric translation by Doolset

Happy Valentine’s Day, rinnie @jooheons!

I was your secret valentine 💜.

I really enjoyed chatting with you and I hope you enjoy this Wild Flower inspired piece of Namjoon.

Hope your day is filled with things that make you smile.

-Epiphany 💜

[roo-bastmoon]

Awesome Lyric Translators

Does everyone already know about DoolSet Bangtan? I'm toddler ARMY so maybe they already do but in case not... These folks have amazing, nuanced translations that also provide background on language, cultural context, and possible links to previous BTS' works.

[bts-polls]

Here's a link to doolset's translation if you'd like a reminder of the english lyrics:

LAST CALL: Desert Island Disc Tournament (Round 2)

The Most Beautiful Moment in Life: Young Forever (Disc 1) | BE

WINGS | BTS, The Best (Disc 2)

[voidbebe]

"Hold me in your arms then because that moon looked lonely, because it looked like it’s crying bright in the night sky."

— still with you (2020)

[but-red-means-stop]

2 cool 4 skool album analysis: Intro

Well, friends, I have returned, much changed and yet not at all changed. Sliding in under the wire of January, this is me making good on my promise to post a track-by-track analysis of 2 Cool 4 Skool by BTS. If I can stay on top of it, I plan to do this monthly until 2025, according to this schedule.

Some things about what to expect: I'm a classically trained singer and instrumentalist with two music degrees, neither of which has anything to do with pop music or music production. What you get are my highly trained listening ears and my very subjective thoughts and feelings about this music. I'm going at this from a baseline of deep love and respect for BTS, so if I seem to be critical or poke fun at them, please bear in mind that it comes from a place of affection.

So we're getting started with the very beginning of BTS: 2 Cool 4 Skool. Which, believe it or not, is technically considered a single album. If you only look at the three song tracks, that seems plausible, but it's also got an instrumental introduction and interlude, plus two skits (“Skit: Circle Room Talk” and “Outro: Circle Room Cypher”), not to mention the two hidden tracks on the physical (“Skit: On the Start Line” and “Path”). For a single album, it's packed. It goes along with the early Bangtan theme of doing the most. Like, this was your debut? Are we kidding?

I was fascinated and honestly a little baffled by the structure of this album when I first encountered it, and I've since come to understand that the non-song tracks, particularly the skits, are actually a hip-hop album thing. As much as we can look at early BTS and see the limitations in their understanding of what hip hop actually was (and was not), they were, at least, doing their best to emulate and respect what they saw as the characteristics of the genre.

The first track is simply called “Intro: 2 Cool 4 Skool”, produced by Supreme Boi. It opens with a sample from a disco instructional record, which is delightful enough on its own, but Wikipedia tells me that it's actually a callback to the 2003 Epik High track “Go” from an album called, believe it or not, Map of the Human Soul. Epik High is definitely on my list of groups to learn more about, not only because their influence was so formative to BTS, but also because Tablo just seems like a really cool guy.

I don't have an awful lot more to say about “Intro: 2 Cool 4 Skool” as a track. The whole vibe is immaculate - the record scratches, the heavy reverb on the drums, the gunshots and the slowdown at the end, you listen to this minute-long snippet and you know exactly what you’re getting into. It starts off the album as unmistakably a hip-hop record in both function and vibe, featuring (in Korean) the lyric, “We tell our story in a carefree way on behalf of those in their 10s and 20s”. It makes a really good, encapsulated statement about what to expect from this single album and from this group.

From here on out, each track will be getting its own post, however short - I don’t anticipate having a massive essay on Circle Room Talk, for instance, but I will be splitting them up for organization’s sake. Translations will always come from Doolset Lyrics unless otherwise noted. 

Look forward to the rest of the album posts coming soon.

Ready

Set

and

Begin.