Yoongi’s English
Deciding who can decide what makes correct English grammar correct
This is the second post in my Substack and I am afraid, the topic is still the good band Bangtan Sonyeondan.
A week ago, I wrote on the insane artistry of j-hope, who bends music to his will in ways that my feeble mind struggles to understand. J-hope is one of three rappers in BTS. The other two are RM and SUGA. It is SUGA who is the subject of our dreams today.
It is a widely repeated line that BTS have pushed the boundaries of Korean pop but if there is someone in BTS who has pushed the boundaries of what a Korean pop artiste is expected to do, it is SUGA. He is quiet, produces songs by the dozen, collaborates with Korean and global artistes big and small, and infuses a SUGA-ness to everything he does. He is a great dancer, and very much the K-pop hero with the finger heart, but he’s also been one to speak of struggles with alcohol, of the really important role money has in life, and possibly the only living star in the world who has spoken openly of his ambitions to become a rock. A physical rock.
SUGA is the BTS stage name of the person Min Yoongi, whose solo work — work which has some distance from his role in BTS — is released under the moniker Agust D. Of the seven in BTS, all of whom speak with a kind of culture-bending derring do on everyday struggles, Yoongi speaks of these the most in his songs.
Yoongi’s third album as Agust D is soon coming out, and just before it, he has released a song called ‘People Part 2,’ in collaboration with IU, who is without any doubt South Korea’s favourite woman singer.
The days leading up to the song’s release were special and full of hope.
‘People’ (part 1), is a cult favourite and for a lot of people (me), it went some way in healing souls (mine). The second part had clear and identifiable references to Yoongi’s lyrics in earlier songs — Savage Love, People and So Far Away, among others. It was a mishmash and reckoning of his solo career, his persona during the pandemic and seemed to chart the way for the new album with true finesse.
But the part of the song that really got people talking was the English lyrics. IU sings:
“So time is yet now, right here to go
I know, you know, anything does know
So time is yet now, right here to go
Nobody doesn't know anymore.”
People wondered what they meant. I wondered what they meant. And since there have been times when English lyrics have been used in not the most lyrical way in Korean pop songs, some fans wondered whether the lyricist of the most famous band in the world had suffered from a lack of basic proofreading.
As a fandom, ARMY — the name for BTS’s fans — do like to engage critically with BTS’s work. They do it in a degree that is far more than what Western media, with its innate inability to account for unpaid devotion as anything but madness, recognises. ARMY have not only done one of the single most important things that has propelled BTS into fame — gratuitously translated not just their music but also all of their letters, speeches, dialogues in variety shows and social media messages — but have also used social media to creatively interpret BTS’s music, lyrics and visual cues. This has opened up Korean culture to the world and also introduced niche references to millions.
This time, too, it was ARMY who stepped in, arguing that maybe the inscrutability of the English lyrics was Yoongi’s goal.
“We often think the purpose of language to convey our intended meaning to others accurately. For that use of language, syntactical and linguistic precision is key. But poetry and lyrics don't necessarily use it that way!” Twitter user @seesawenthooz wrote in response to a fan mildly complaining about the quoted section.
I have posted the link to the whole thread above because in addition to giving us an impression of how the author feels about Yoongi’s lyrics, it also offers good idea of how BTS’s fandom functions — through the criss-crossing of politely told knowledge.
Another thread my friend and co-traveller in the BTS journey, Anwesha, told me about likened Yoongi’s lyrics to reading James Joyce.
Once literature students facing three courses on European Modernity, Anwesha and I did know that words did not need to be in straight sentences to be sensible. They could come in whichever order they like, in thick goop-like splotches and in round circles, smushed against each other, heavy with nonsense and light with meaning. How else can the sea can be snotgreen and scrotumtightening.
But for Yoongi, as I have long suspected that it has been for BTS, I feel like the use of English has lately been political.
As Asian men, BTS are no strangers to racism. They have had a tall task in conquering the West and the world while singing in a language with a non-Roman alphabet. They have done it, and yet in every live broadcast by a BTS member, there will be countless comments asking them to speak in English. Sometimes, a j-hope will joke that he cannot speak in English and sometimes RM — a consummate English speaker — will say that he won’t at the moment.
Never colonised by the British, Koreans have not had reason — like say, Indians — to learn English. Far less pride themselves in their ability to speak it flawlessly. Where we have made a colonial imposition a badge of honour and status — I would know as a person with an English-medium education, two English literature degrees and a day job as an English copy editor — BTS’s awareness of the role of English is, like much of their politics, quiet.
Speaking of English lyrics in his song ‘Equal Sign’ on the album Jack in the Box, j-hope had said last year that he chose to write and sing in English even though he thinks he is not that good at it for a clear reason.
“The refrain is in English. I'm not that good at English but one of the reasons I did it is to show that although my English isn't that good I can still sing in English. I thought that was also one way to express equality through music. That's why I decided to sing in English.”
He has handled English in a forthright and natural way. So many people speak it, so he has tried to speak it too — in the same way that fans of his have begun to tackle Korean after having been introduced to it through BTS.
Which is all the more reason why I feel like Yoongi’s decision to write some of the poetry of his song in English — and not just in plain English but an English that makes you take a moment — is an act of calm daring.
A language cannot belong only to poets born in it, his song appears to say.
During the pandemic and just after it, BTS starred in three English songs. While many loved them, some in Korea said the English lyrics — infused to a degree with diluted and very pop sensations — didn’t do justice to BTS’s ability to write songs. In the West, snide criticism arrived from the usual racist quarters.
Yoongi’s move tells his listeners that a language cannot belong to a single arbiter. It has to be ready to live its own life.
I hope Yoongi writes more lyrics in inscrutable English, in English that makes us do several double takes, that inspires big debates on Twitter and milder debates on group chats among persnickety English literature post-graduate degree holders.
I hope his English words are ‘mis’pronounced, shouted, omitted, melded together — with the soft and hard sounds of all the Ss confused. For a language to live, it must flow, and for it to flow, this is essential.