The playlist starts with the track, tokyo. I describe “tokyo” as being eerily beautiful yet comforting at the same time. The choice of tokyo as the first song that starts the playlist fits incredibly well as “tokyo” has a melancholic feel. This combined with Namjoon’s deep, soothing and calm singing voice, makes it feel like you’re being guided through the playlist in its raw form. The song almost sounds like thoughts one may have at early hours of the morning when they are unable to fall asleep. In this song, Namjoon delves into an array of complex emotions. The lyrics, in the beginning, are questioning how sometimes we feel lost within ourselves,  which causes a sense of confusion. “Do I miss myself?”, “I don’t know”. He mentions that he feels like it’s “time to go”,  which could suggest a change in his life that he is aware of and feels as if it needs to be changed. He calls his former self, Pinocchio. “I see Pinocchio/Wearing a poncho/This me some time ago”. The use of the word “Pinocchio” suggests that RM is referring to his former self-being deceitful but also the fact that he tried to hide the realities of who he truly is as he’s “wearing a poncho” and does not want people to see his true self that is underneath the poncho and beneath all the lies. The lyrics  “life is a word that sometimes you cannot say and ash is the thing that someday we all should be,” is an idea that RM has spoken about before. In an interview, RM said, “When we burn something, we always have ashes left. But sometimes we just forget. But there’s always the ashes, the black dark ashes.” Furthermore, there seems to be a sense of uncertainty about several things, about “tomorrow” and the desire for things to pause and to “stop and sit right next to you”. However, despite the uncertainty, there is something or someone that helps him feel less overwhelmed about the questions regarding uncertainty. This is evident in the line “I just want to stay right next to you”. At the end of the song, we are reminded of the eerie feeling that this song has with RM bringing it to a close with his whistling.

 

Track Two: seoul

The production of this song heightens the feelings that are portrayed in seoul. Honne, the English electronic music duo, collaborated with RM on this song. The upbeat yet calming production of the song, in conjunction with the lyrics, continue to bring to light the love/hate narrative of the song. It seems like even though RM is explicitly talking about his own experience with the city of Seoul, this song can relate to the lifestyle of cities in general. Through his lyrics, he plays with the concept of love and hate and how these two things are related to one another as well as showing us the dark and bright sides of Seoul. “I’m already too used to this city’s harmony/even if my childhood is distant and [the city] is full of buildings and cars, this is my home now”. At the beginning of the song, RM makes it clear how Seoul has changed him as a person and that his childhood is distant now. He’s lived in Seoul for so long, that he now sees Seoul as his home, especially with him being used to the harmony of the city. RM goes on to speak about Seoul in a somewhat negative light, which is present in the lyrics “seoul, seoul/ why is your pronunciation the same as ‘soul’?/ what soul do you have?”. These lyrics continue the questioning tone that was introduced in tokyo. “If love and hate are the same words, I love you seoul/If love and hate are the same words, I hate you seoul”. Whilst listening to this song when it first dropped, you can’t help but think about the places where all the members of BTS came from before moving to Seoul. None of them are from the city of Seoul.  Namjoon is from Ilsan and although that is only about an hour or two away, Seoul is the heart of South Korea and it has a different lifestyle in comparison to any other village, town, or city in South Korea. Seoul is the land of opportunities, especially for a musician. Despite it being the land of opportunities for musicians, there is always the downside of living in a city.

Track Three: moonchild 

When the tracklist was posted on BTS’s twitter account, I immediately knew that moonchild would be ‘that’ song that did it for me and I was not wrong. “moonchild” is a song that talks about how pain is a given in life and is something that can’t be avoided. As humans, we have to learn how to live through the pain and “dance in the pain”. RM seems to be speaking from the perspective of a moonchild but also to a moonchild. The lyrics of this song,  although in the third person, can be said to be RM talking directly to himself as well as the others he includes in this entity. Not only is the moonchild a source of comfort but the moon is as well. The encouraging and comforting feeling is evident in the chorus “moonchild you shine/ when you rise, it’s your time/ moonchild don’t cry/ when moonrise, it’s your time”. After the first chorus, it is followed by verses that talk about being unable to escape despite wanting to; despite wanting to die, they end up working even harder than before and that thinking about not think is thinking on its own. This song is a song for anyone who may feel like this but it also shows the growth in Namjoon as an individual. In one of his pre-debut songs titled “Suicide,” he raps the lyrics, “honestly I’m falling up the ladder, maybe this song will be my last letter” and now he raps“If I want to die, I’ll strive to live as much as I want to die”. The lyrics in this song are not only insightful but also poetic. Listening to this song, I feel a sense of hope as well as comfort.

Track Four: badbye (with eAeon 이이언)

RM collaborated with longtime friend, 이이언 eAeon,  on this track. As a fan of eAeon, when I listened to this song, I could immediately tell it incorporated his musical style. The song is very minimal in terms of lyrics and is the shortest song in the playlist, but despite this, it is so powerful. The word ‘badbye’ is the compounding of the words ‘bad’ and ‘goodbye’ which could suggest that something may have ended in the least ideal way. The production of the song makes it feel like this ‘badbye’ was painful, which could suggest the use of the lyrics “kill me, kill me softly” being in the major key. The song has a very heavy feel to it as well as there being a sense of lack of closure due to the lingering of the song at the end.

Track Five: 어긋 uhgood

The song is titled “어긋 ” or as uhgood as it’s a play on words. uhgood is supposed to sound like the Korean word, 어긋 which roughly means to be out of place. With the use of lyrics “All I need is me, I know, I know, I know/All you need is you, you know, you know, you know,” this track reflects on the realization that at the end of the day, as long as we support and love ourselves, we will be fine. It incorporates the theme of loving yourself, a theme that BTS constantly advocates for. This track relays the message that you are the most important person to yourself and that you don’t need anyone else to be happy. Although we have that positive message, it is still painful and disappointing to watch expectations fail to fall into place in our realities. RM raps about how he feels disappointment within himself and how he feels the need to do better. He asks himself in the lyricS “Is this all your worth?”. “To fall out of expectation is so painful/ If you don’t experience it, it’s something you cannot know/ My daily life is so far from reality/ But I’ll still cross the bridge, I want to go, to you/ To the real me”. It seems as though RM is trying to portray his glamorous lifestyle as an Idol which has now taken over his everyday life. This is essentially distant from the “reality” of how things are in life. In his reflection, he longs to go to the person who he is; the “real me,“ as he says. Bringing it back to the name of this track, the decision to spell 어긋 as uhgood can be viewed as RM trying to say that a lack of conformity is a strength. RM expresses his deepest thoughts in this song, which is centred around a mellow instrumental. This, in turn, creates a sad, but also a relaxed and chill tone to the track.