Now That This Poll Is Closed, Here's A Better Visualization Of The Results. Thanks Again @myobsessionsspace

Now that this poll is closed, here's a better visualization of the results. Thanks again @myobsessionsspace for the idea that spawned this one. I always love our conversations that delve into some deeper concepts! The idea around accepting a label is so interesting to me.

So overall, 64% of voters are comfortable being labeling themselves as ARMY. And the comfort response was the highest in all classifications of activity.

LAST CALL: Would you have attended one of the Map of the Soul Concerts?

The Truth Untold

Ballads by BTS

You know when a song is timeless and you can keep going back to it, without it ever growing old? The Truth Untold is such a song.

I’ve talked about how much I like this song in my Jimin vocals part 1 post which you can find on my masterlist.

The song is part of BTS 3rd Album, Love Yourself: Tear. The song is produced by Steve Aoki and written by a number of artists including a Mr Kim Namjoon.

Before we delve into the lyrics and vocals, let’s talk a bit about the tale of the Beauty and The Beast, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and the Legend of the Smeraldo Flower. What is the common theme? Falling in love but being unsure, unable, hesitant to declare it due to, what the protagonist believes is, their inherent ugliness that would scare their love away.

The Lyrics

The song is from the perspective of the protagonist in Smeraldo.

Legend has it that the man was isolated because he was an illegitimate child and so ugly could mean physical ugliness or the ugliness of being an illegitimate child (remember the tale is ancient and back then, illegitimate children were called slurs and fathers’ of girls from ‘good families’ didn’t marry their daughters off to such men). There is a line in the song which speaks to this:

너에게 다가설 수 없으니까
I can’t come closer to you

내겐 불러줄 이름이 없어
I don’t have a name to be called by

A name, is the most basic form of identification of self. A name is also symbolic of the status, class, family that the person comes from. Knowing that the man was an illegitimate child, the line makes sense - he doesn’t have a name that he can be recognised by. Essentially, he believes that since he is illegitimate (ugly), he does not have anything (a future) to give her.

I’d also like to make reference to Flower, a poem by Kim Chunsu (a poem Namjoon has referenced before, but I don’t know whether he was influenced by it when writing this song):

Before I called their name,
they were nothing
more than a gesture

When I called their name,
they came to me
and became a flower.

This amplifies the significance of the name. When the writer says:

내겐 불러줄 이름이 없어
I don’t have a name to be called by

One can assume that they consider themselves as ‘nothing worthy’:

Before I called their name,
they were nothing.

The man, having nothing much else to do in his big dark castle grows these beautiful flowers (thought: if this man was indeed so ugly, how did he grow such beautiful flowers - shows us that beautiful things come from what some consider ugly spaces) which this young lady steals to make a living.

외로움이 가득히 피어있는 이 garden
This garden where loneliness is in full bloom

가시투성이
Covered with prickly thorns,

이 모래성에 난 날 매었어
I chained myself to this sandcastle

As he observes her/follows her, he becomes enamoured and wanted to help her by teaching her all methods of growing the flowers. However, he could not find within himself the courage to come before her finding himself ‘ugly’.

외로움의 정원에 핀 너를 닮은 꽃
A flower that looks like you bloomed in the garden of loneliness

주고 싶었지
I wanted to give it to you

바보 같은 가면을 벗고서
after taking off this silly mask

But I know

영원히 그럴 수는 없는 걸
that I can’t never ever do so

숨어야만 하는 걸
that I have to hide myself

추한 나니까
because I’m ugly

He instead vows to help her by continuing to grow these beautiful flowers so she can sell them until he has the brain wave to grow the rarest, never seen before flower which would fetch the highest price when she sells it.

할 수 있는 건
All I can do is,

정원에
in the garden,

이 세상에
in this world,

예쁜 너를 닮은 꽃을 피운 다음
after I make bloom a flower that looks like the beautiful you,

니가 아는 나로 숨쉬는 것
to live as “I” that you know

Such is his love, so sincere are his feelings towards her, that he drops his angsty self and dedicates time to cultivate the best flower.

Alas, he later finds out that she passed on and he wonders how it would have been had he been able to just find that bit of courage.

어쩌면 그때
Perhaps, back then,

조금만
by just a little,

이만큼만
by just a bit,

용길 내서 너의 앞에 섰더라면
if I had taken courage and stood in front of you,

지금 모든 건 달라졌을까
would everything have been different now

I also have an unconventional thought/interpretation of this song. Because the song is from the LY series, I am inclined to assume that the writer is also singing to himself, saying that he is unworthy of (is afraid to) love (himself) because of his ugly side, that he is better off, hiding, within himself because he is so ugly. But loving oneself requires so much courage. Telling ourselves the truth, that our flaws (our ugly) is only part of what we are and not that sum total of what makes us. Loving our self requires us to exercise so much acceptance and forgiveness. It is when we have truly, courageously accepted ourselves wholly that we can truly love others. See below side note.

The whole song is about the courage of telling the truth lest it’s too late. Whether to oneself or to a loved one.

The Vocals

I’ve said this before I think…but this has to be my favourite vocal line performance. Everyone on this track brought their best. But my favourite are Jin and Jimin. Particularly Jimin because of how he emotes during 0.51 (when he comes on) and 1.51 (where he says he is the monster. Oh Jimin. Jimin. The emotion!) parts of the song.

The Production/Music

Steve Aoki is at the helm here. And for those who know of my love of Mic Drop know I have *loved* the version featuring him. TTU has a melody that is haunting (think dark isolated castle) and very theatrical (use of piano, use of the echo effect throughout the song, observe the steady rise towards crescendo at 2.58) but what I love most about it is that the music does not overpower the vocals rather it complements it (credit goes to the sound engineer, PDogg I think). According to me, one of the best produced and engineered songs in their discography.

Point to note: BTS is very intentional. So if you look at how the live performances were, note the costumes, lighting, opulent stage - all speaks to theatre/musicals and guess what was a musical? Yes. The Beauty and The Beast!

Reactions to The Truth Untold

The following are my top favourite reaction videos. These are reactors who have some form of musical knowledge or are artists themselves so I quite liked their opinions. As a Jimin bias I am particularly leaning in favour of the second link.

Link 1

Link 2

Side note:

When I was researching for this post, it resulted in a deep dive into the Love Yourself albums and the BTS Universe. I had previously seen clips/tweets of Jin being the central character and the one responsible for going back in time to save the members. Well, as I was analysing the lyrics, now bearing in mind Jin’s role…I came to the conclusion that Jin, the person, is chosen because he is 진, which translates to ‘the Truth’. As such, Jin is the one who embodies the truth or is burdened with the truth.

TTU, thus, is a tale of the boys and their ugly sides (whether due to their own actions or circumstances they’ve been put in resulting in the belief that they are ugly) which if they were to learn to accept, forgive themselves for and love, it would ultimately save them. This, is just my interpretation.

Whoever created the BU deserves kisses and flowers.

One thing I absolutely adore about BTS is how they all…fit.

They just work so well off each other. It takes an insane amount of practice but also a deep respect and understanding to reach there and I don’t think any other group can emulate that. They can try. But there won’t be another BTS.

I've had an idea for a few months now for some polls involving all of the albums for @bts-polls . To procrastinate some housework, i started making some gifs for these this morning.

It is now past midnight and I've finished the first step on all of them. I got nothing else done today BUT I feel like I went time traveling through all of the BTS discography. It was such a treat but I feel a little lost returning to the present. Lol.

Anyway, these polls are gonna be really cool but I we won't see them for a few days . As the fellas used to always say: "Please look forward to it!"

💜

Run BTS: 041 | BTS Golden Bell part 2

Original Air Date: 20 FEB 2018 Episode Length: 33:38 Total Parts: 2 YouTube English Subtitles: Yes Title Song: Blood Sweat & Tears

Synopsis: Conclusion of the previous Golden Bell episode with more games

Production: These games were perfect for this type of show. The only criticism I have is they haven't quite figured out how best to film content like the drawing game where we need to see all of the members as well as the content being drawn. But it's such a small issue. There's a reason why this episode is iconic.

Endearment: The guys absolutely hit it out of the park with this episode. They all displayed excellent entertainer skills whilst highlighting their personalities.

Winner: RM

Loser: YG

Best Cheater: I'm giving this to Hobi for using an action during the telephone game.

Member Moments:

RM: RM absolutely owning the flag game!

JN: More for the list of Jin as a skilled entertainer. killed it with the drawing clues and absolutely astonishing with the telephone game.

YG: I love how affronted Yoongi is that everyone only praises Jin for the americano clue and not also him for getting it right.

JH: Hobi seems so personally offended that Jimin is bad at the telephone game.

JM: One of the absolute best variety show moments ever. Lah Ji Bo La La!!

V: I dont know! literally had me laughing out loud. With JKs response, what do you want me to do??

JK: JKs immediate moonwalk!

Bonus Content:  Did you know V was eating onions during the other teams attempt at the telephone game??? haha, what a nut.

CQ Rank: 5

(CQ Eval Date: 06 JAN 2024)

Check out this post for my Masterlist of all episodes and descriptions of how I'm evaluating these.

Previous Episode: 040

Next Episode: 042

Run BTS: 039 | BTS Golden Bell part 1

Original Air Date: 06 FEB 2018 Episode Length: 22:46 Total Parts: 2 YouTube English Subtitles: Yes Title Song: Blood Sweat & Tears

Synopsis: The guys are broken into two teams and play some games from other variety shows.

Production: There's a lot of games and explanations, but the edit is so much more relaxed. There's clearly quite a bit of content that got cut out but it doesn't feel like we're missing anything. Great job editors!

Endearment: Jin shines so brightly this episode and he brings the rest of the guys with him. If i knew nothing about their music, I think this episode still would have made me want to learn more about this team.

Winner/Loser: see final part

Best Cheater: None that I noticed but I feel like I just smiled the whole way through this rewatch and I may have missed something.

Member Moments:

RM: RMs impersonation of Hobi during the YesNo game tugs at my heartstrings

JN: Jin absolutely kills it as the host here. He starts off strong with the Yes/No game and then absolutely peaks with the nonsense questions.

YG: Yoongi being more comfortable hosting during the fry pan game

JH: There's just something so great about Hobi being along for the ride on these types of games. He may not know all of the clever little answers, but he's such an integral part of the team.

JM: Another iconic fall by jimin during the fry pan game

V: I honestly am shocked V was the first out at the YesNo game. it seems like he'd be so good at this type of game.

JK: JKs adorable attempt at MC. Maybe if it had been for a different kind of episode, he would have stuck with it but this one definitely wasn't to his strengths to MC.

Bonus Content:  Some great JK moments. i don't know why these episodes appeal to me so much. they're just quietly lovely. (as quiet as any bangtan chaos can be at least)

CQ Rank: 4

(CQ Eval Date: 06 JAN 2024)

Check out this post for my Masterlist of all episodes and descriptions of how I'm evaluating these.

Previous Episode: 038

Next Episode: 040

Run BTS: 044 | Satisfaction of the Five Senses part 2

Original Air Date: 13 MAR 2018 Episode Length: 30:42 Total Parts: 2 YouTube English Subtitles: Yes Title Song: Blood Sweat & Tears

Synopsis: Continuing the previous episode

Production: I was far too overstimulated with the visual quiz. lol but i think that's a me thing. Food tasting is always a good subject with the members. I thought it was interesting how they chose what items to test in each context.

Endearment: ...I didn't leave any notes here either. Must've been having a rough couple of days with the rewatches and taking good notes. Going off memory though, nothing stands out to me either good or bad this ep. We get some glimpses into how they interact but they're all pretty focused on the actual challenges.

Winner: JK

Loser: JN

Best Cheater: none

Member Moments:

RM: RM, why did you give up on the vision test? you're so good with details

JN: Honestly kinda disappointed in Jin's sandwich identification skills. i really expected him to ace that.

YG: Yoongi getting the rice taste test while dressed as RJ is so cute.

JH: Not Hobi giving Yoongi a GIANT scoop of rice 🤣

JM: Those clips of Jimin eating are something else. *cough*

V: V, I'm sure I would have failed the water test too!

JK: JK, the smelling test is done. Why are you sniffing the members now?!

Bonus Content: It's definitely worth watching for the extra clips of RM and V's punishment, but there's not much from the ep that isn't in the released cut.

CQ Rank: 3.5

(CQ Eval Date: 07 JAN 2024)

Check out this post for my Masterlist of all episodes and descriptions of how I'm evaluating these.

Previous Episode: 043

Next Episode: 045