(Source)

Well, this is embarrassing.

Now as you’re probably aware, I simply love this song, and must have listened to it well over a hundred times. And the music video is amazing too.

But now that I’ve actually studied the lyrics? Hell, but for the word “2010″ at the beginning, I actually had no idea that so much of the song was in English.

On the positive side though, that’s given me a renewed appreciation for the difficulties many Koreans have in realizing that a (frustrated) foreigner is actually speaking Korean to them, albeit in a strange accent. And I don’t mind how nonsensical all the English in the song is either, as that’s quite normal for K-pop.

But unfortunately the Korean too seems literally thrown together in many places, which made it difficult for even my Korean wife to understand. And as you’ll soon see, the small amount of it below belies how much time and effort went into translating it.

And knowing all that about the song now? To be frank, it’s made it lose just a bit of its magic for me.

Lest the same happen to you, read on at your peril!

The first part obviously doesn’t need an explanation, although I’d be interested in learning what “la couture” means exactly:

Sing it with me now

2010, We bringing new love to the floor

Rocking what’s real la couture

We opening new doors new show new world new control

Can you keep up oh!

Hallo! Hallo! Hallo! Hallo! Hallo!

Hallo! Hallo! Hallo! Hallo! Hallo!

Hallo! Hallo! Hallo! Hallo! Hallo! Catch!

Hallo! Hallo! Catch! Catch! Hallo! Hallo!

(Source)

겁먹지마 니 심장소리가 들켜 (쉿!)

뒤에 서서 침착하게 지켜봐봐

탐난다고 서두르단 결국 Game set

유연하게 행동해봐 As usual it’s mine

Hide your fear, your heartbeat will be detected (shh!)

Stand behind [me], calmly try to keep watch

Even if it is desirable, if you hurry in the end Game set

Try to be flexible As usual it’s mine

(Source)

Most of that was pretty basic, provided you know that adding “보다” to the end of a verb, and conjugated in banmal (반말; informal speech) as “봐”, simply means try to do the verb. At the end of line 2, it’s added to “지켜보다” (to keep watch), hence the “지켜봐봐”.

But I don’t understand line 3 at all: “탐난다” means “be desirable” (not “burn” as given everywhere else: that’s “타다”), which is simple enough, but then it’s given as indirect speech, as indicated by the “~ㄴ다고” ending. But who said what is desirable? And what’s the connection to “서두르다” (hurry) after that for that matter, and while we’re at it what’s the “ㄴ” doing at the end of that too?

To make sense of it then, I suggested to my wife that possibly something like “탐나더라도” was intended, the “더라더” being a grammar pattern meaning “no matter how much, even though, I don’t care if”, and so on, and she concurred.

Finally, line 4 is literally “flexibly act/behave-try-to”.

(Source)

Next, there’s the main chorus. As you can see though, there’s just one Korean line in it, and its simply “Go/climb high, try to grab/take all the world”:

(Eo eo eo) It’s  mine

(Eo eo eo) This is mine

(Eo eo eo) This is mine

(Eo eo eo)

높이 올라 가 (Ye Ye Ye) 세상을 다 가져봐 (Ye Ye Ye)

Never back it up Back it it up (it it up)

Never turn it up Turn it it up (it it up)

(Source)

Hallo! Hallo! Hallo! Hallo! Hallo! Catch!

Hallo! Hallo! Catch! Catch! Hallo! Hallo!

한눈팔면 기회조차 뺏겨버려 (쉿!)

누구보다 한발 먼저 다가가 봐

남들처럼 티내다간 결국 Game set

유연하게 행동해봐 As usual it’s mine

If you so much as glance away, you’ll throw away your chance (shh!)

You should take the first step and try to approach

If you have the air of everyone else in the end Game set

Try to be flexible As usual it’s mine

(Source)

In Line 1 (of the Korean), “한눈” is literally “one eye”, and “팔다” sell, but hopefully it’s not too much of a jump to see that “selling one eye” means “look (or glance) away”, especially as the listener was already told to keep watch in the last verse.

Then, next to “기회” (chance, opportunity) there is the grammar pattern “조차”, which basically means “even, to boot, in addition”, as in “목이 아파서 밥은커녕 물한 잔조차 마실 수 없다” for example, or “My throat is so sore that I can’t even drink a glass of water, let alone eat rice”.

But with the next, “뱃기다” (be dispossessed of) plus the grammar pattern “버리다” added to it, which adds a sense of completely ruining or throwing away something, then in English the “even” seemed a bit awkward. So I came up with “If you so much as glance away, you’ll throw away your chance” instead.

Then line 2 is literally “who than- one step – first – approach try to”, so I think “You should take the first step and try to approach” gets the gist of that. And the “who” (or rather “they”) referred to is the “남들” in line 3, which I originally thought was an abbreviation for men (“남자” plus the plural marker “들”),  but it turns out to mean “other people” instead. But note though, that that’s not in the sense that the male is used the default for both genders like in Spanish(?), as they’re different words: the “남” in “남들” has no hanja (Chinese character) root, whereas that for “남자” does, and indeed you’ll often see it – 男 – on doors to toilets and men’s changing rooms and so on (and while we’re on the topic, here’s the one for women {여} too: 女).

Finally, in line 3 “티내다” wasn’t in my electronic dictionary, but “티” can mean “an air”, and pulling a thick print dictionary from my bookcase with more examples  of that usage confirmed it.

(Source)

Next, the chorus is repeated, then you have:

이제 차근차근 걸어나가봐

세상 하나하나 전부 가득 담아봐

특별하길 원하니 네 것이길 바라니

시작해 Uh! Yeah, yeah!!

Now try to step out slowly and carefully

Try to fill in each and every part of the whole world

Do you want to be special? Do you hope it will be yours?

Start Uh! Yeah, yeah!!

(Source)

First up, in line 1, “차근차근” can mean “scrupulously”, “methodically”, “systematically”, and so on, but the final, more literal meaning of “step by step” seems most appropriate here. But then “Step out step by step” sounds awkward in English though, so I changed it to “slowly and carefully” instead. That does seem to contradict the carpe diem spirit of the song a little unfortunately, but I think that’s the fault of the original Korean!

Then you have “걸어나가다”, which was annoying for me as a beginner (Yet another word for “walk”?? And Koreans complain about learning English!), but is quite easy to understand really. You see, “걷다”, which is irregular and so conjugates as “걸어~”, is your basic “walk”.  But then you can have things like “가다” and “오다” added to them, giving “걸어오다” and “걸어가다”, and which simply mean “walk” plus “come” and “go” respectively, or “walk towards [the speaker]” and “walk away from [the speaker]” in English. And with “걸어나가다” in the song, “나가다” simply means “go/step out”, giving “walk out”. Granted, it can also mean “walk towards, approach” according to the dictionary, (and don’t forget that “다가가다” from the last verse means “approach” too!), but “walk out” seems much more appropriate given the context of the previous verses.

Line 2 was very annoying though. Literally, it is “world – one by one – all parts/whole – full – fill/put in try to”, which can probably be translated many different ways (but not one by one as in separate worlds though), and “Try to fill in each and every part of the whole world” was the best I could do.

But that was a doddle compared to line 3. First up, “특별하다” means “to be special”, but then adding “기” at the end changes it to a noun, and then the “ㄹ” makes it the object. So, “specialness”, with the “원하다” being “want” plus the “니” at the end being an informal question form, and usually implying that the speaker places themself slightly higher than the listener – usually determined by age, as explained by Seamus Walsh in his comments to a translation of another song (a belated thanks for those by the way!). Which gives “Do you want specialness”, or “Do you want to be special?”.

Then you have “것이길 바라니”. “바라다” means “desire”, “hope for”, and “look forward to” (you’ll often see the formal form “바랍니다” at the end of signs on the subway and so on), and it includes the “니” form at the end as just explained. But “것이길”? I guess it’s “것” (thing) plus “이다” (to be) plus “기” to make it a noun, then “ㄹ” to make all that an object. So literally “your thing – the act of beingness – hope for”!

And that’s it, but for the 2nd half of the chorus again:

높이 올라 가 (Ye Ye Ye) 세상을 다 가져 봐 (Uh yeah)

Never back it up Back it it up (it it up)

Never turn it up Turn it it up (uh yeah, yeah!!)

As a reward for slogging your way through all that, let me present you with the DJ Amaya vs Groovebot Hard Club Edit, which reminds me a lot  of what I used to dance to in clubs 10-15 years ago (wistful sigh):

Originally, this particular KARA fan didn’t like it much. But it rapidly grew on her, and you can see how she felt when it finally finished:

Next week: I Don’t Care by 2NE1.

( Source )

Seems like everyone was really disappointed with Korean girl groups in 2010, and for good reason.

It’s kind of embarrassing then, that it was also the year that I first got into them. But still, I too was struck by how many of their members couldn’t even sing, and soon resolved to stick to the original tracks and official music videos rather than watch any live performances again.

It was with some trepidation then, that after I discovered I Don’t Care by 2NE1 (투애니원), I immediately thought to describe their voices as, well, simply beautiful, especially Park Sandara’s (박산다라). Fortunately however, they don’t seem too different on stage either, and I think I’d enjoy listening to them singing even without any accompanying music.

Here is the original music video that got me hooked:

A live performance for the sake of comparison:

Next, a video which already has English lyrics. Some are very strange and/or completely wrong though, but otherwise they’re mostly correct, and good for getting the gist:

Yeah, I don’t think a Playboy bunny costume is apt either, even for an anime version of – I think – Park Bom (박봄).

But next, a reggae mix that I hate myself, but you might like it, and I think it actually became more popular than the original in Korea:

Finally, a not bad dance remix, although I’m not really sure who the “Baek Kyoung” referred to is sorry:

Meanwhile, I’m just as surprised as you are to find myself describing the “bad girls” of K-pop as having beautiful voices. But now that I think about it, why can’t they go together?

If I did have to find a flaw with the song though, it would be that the lyrics are a little inconsistent with what stage of the relationship the couple is in exactly: as you’ll soon see, in one line the girlfriend can appear to have just split up with the boyfriend, then in the next they seem to be together but she’s thinking about it, and then in yet another they sound like they split up a long time ago!

It would be very very tempting just to have assumed that they’re in one of those stages and translated accordingly (like in the video with English lyrics above), but I don’t think the lyrics justify that, and so ended up stumbling along accordingly. But with just a bit more thought by the writers, all that unnecessary confusion could easily have been avoided.

Update – In hindsight, the final verse does indeed resolve their relationship: they’re together, but about to split up. But please forgive me though, for declining to rewrite all 2400 words of translations and explanations accordingly!^^

Hey playboy, it’s about time and your time’s up

I had to do this one for my girls you know

Sometimes you gotta act like you don’t care

That’s the only way you boys learn

Oh oh oh oh oh oh 2ne1 이야이야

Oh oh oh oh oh oh 2ne1 이야이야

니 옷깃에 묻은 립스틱들 나는 절대로 용서못해

매일 하루에 수십번 꺼져있는 핸드폰

변하지 않을것만 같아 oh oh

I absolutely can’t forgive your collar being stained with lipsticks

Every day your phone dies many times

I don’t think you’ll ever change oh oh

( Source )

Line 1 of the Korean is a pretty basic, literal translation, although personally I was pretty surprised to learn that “묻다” means “stain” as well as “dig”. I’m more familiar with”얼룩지다”, easier to remember because “zebra” is “어룩말”, or literally “stain horse”.

Line 2 was more difficult though. First, because “매일” means “every day”, but then “하루” means “a day,” or “one day”, so already there’s some either unnecessary and/or nonsensical repetition (not to be confused with that about the relationship though). Not being able to figure out what the combination meant, then I decided to plump for the former, although I was tempted to put “all day long” in there instead, or “하루정일”, as given the next part then that would make sense in English at least.

That next part was “수십번”, rather confusedly “several” and/or “many times” according to my dictionary, but clearly the latter is more appropriate in the context of the song. Then, “꺼져있다”  was a little confusing for a moment, as it has many meanings. And for a while, I thought that the 2 most suitable here – “fade/die out/extinguish” and “be turned off” give slightly different nuances to the song: does the boyfriend’s phone “keep on dying”, like the lyrics in one of the videos above gives, or is it turned off, presumably deliberately in order to avoid the girlfriend? But either way, note that it’s actually “꺼지다” + “있다”, meaning that the phone is left in the state of dying and/or being turned off for a long time…and I guess that the 2 meanings actually amount to pretty much the same thing in the end.

Finally, the “만” in line 3 doesn’t mean “only”, but is just used for emphasis, as we’ve seen in many previous song translations.

(Source)

그저 친구라는 수많은 여자친구

날 똑같이 생각하지마 I won’t let it ride

이제 니 맘대로 해 난 미련은 버릴래

한땐 정말 사랑했는데 oh oh

All those girls you call just your friends

Don’t think of me as the same, I won’t let it ride

Now just do what you like, I want to be rid of my lingering affection for you

I really loved you once

(Source)

Pretty easy, although my wife said that “그저” in line 1 meant “just”, which wasn’t one of the meanings in my dictionary, and that “한땐” in line 4 was “한때” + “는”, or “once”.

But as for the jump in the middle of the song, between sounding like they’re still together and she’s working at improving the relationship, to sounding like she, well, just doesn’t care, presumably them having split up? I’m just as stuck as you!

Update: In hindsight, it’s strange that she wants to be more than just one of his female friends? I thought that she already was, and the problem was that all of those female friends of his were actually women he’s cheated on her with?

( Source )

가끔씩 술에 취해 전활 걸어 지금은 새벽 다섯시 반

넌 또 다른 여자애 이름을 불러 no no

I don’t care 그만할래 니가 어디에서 뭘 하던

이제 정말 상관 안할게 비켜줄래

이제와 울고불고 매달리지마

Frequently when you’re drunk you call me at 5:30 in the morning

And again you call me by another woman’s name no no

I don’t care, I want to end this, Wherever you are, Whatever you do

Now I won’t have anything to do with it, Get out of my way

Don’t suddenly hold on to me and start weeping

( Source )

A long section, but pretty easy. Just a couple of points: first, don’t be confused by the “걸다” in “전활를 걸다” (shortened to “전활 걸어” here), as I often used to be; although by itself it does mean “hang”, “”전활를 걸다” does not mean “hang up the phone” but rather “to make a phone call”, the complete opposite.

Next, my wife says “이제와” is short for “이제와서”, which means “suddenly”. Frankly I don’t get that, so I’ll have to take her word for it, but if anybody else has an explanation then that would be appreciated!

Meanwhile, the next part is very easy, so I’ll skip an explanation:

(Source)

Cause I don’t care e e e e e

I don’t care e e e e e

Cause I don’t care e e e e e

I don’t care e e e e e

Boy I don’t care

다른 여자들의 다리를 훔쳐보는

니가 너무너무 한심해

매일 빼놓는 커플링 나 몰래 한 소개팅

더 이상 못 참을 것 같아 oh oh

You steal a glance at other women’s legs

You’re so pitiful

Every day you take off your couple ring and secretly go on a blind date

I guess I can’t take it any more oh oh

( Source )

넌 절대 아니라는 수많은 나의 친구

난 너 땜에 친구들까지 다 잃었지만

차라리 홀가분해 너에게 난 과분해

내 사랑이라 믿었는데 oh oh

My many friends that said you weren’t right for me

I lost all of them because of you, but

That’s actually a relief

You don’t deserve me

I believed you were my true love oh oh

( Source )

And as if to make up for the easy part, that was quite difficult. True, the basic translations are easy enough, but an important part was unspoken, then yet again some sentences seem to contradict the others, then finally one way of saying something in English is said completely the opposite way in Korean!

Dealing with each in turn, line 1 is literally “you-absolutely-not-many-my friends”, but the “not” part is a relative clause incorporating the “many-my friends”. But what is the boyfriend “not”? Presumably, right for her, and presumably they said that to her too.

Next, I don’t how on Earth losing all her friends was “차라리 흘가분해”, literally “rather [a] relief” but that’s what it says: maybe because they weren’t really her friends or something.

Finally, just after that you have literally “you-to-me-unworthy”. Which sounds fine in English when put like that, but then the “me” is the subject here, as indicated by the addition of the “ㄴ”, short for “는”, and Korean is made much easier by thinking of “는” and “은” as meaning “as for” in English. So with those qualifications, now you have “you-to-as for me-unworthy”, which would be best re-ordered in English to “as for me-to-you-unworthy”. But rest assured, it is definitely still he that is unworthy of her in the Korean nonetheless…

There are only 2 new lines in the next section, and they’re pretty easy, so again I’ll skip an explanation. Yeah, I ‘m beginning to notice a pattern too:

(Source)

오늘도 바쁘다고 말하는 너 혹시나 전화해봤지만

역시 뒤에선 여자 웃음소리가 들려 oh no

I don’t care 그만할래 니가 어디에서 뭘 하던

이제 정말 상관 안할게 비켜줄래

이제와 울고불고 매달리지마

Cause I don’t care e e e e e

I don’t care e e e e e

You said you were busy today too, but by chance I got a hold of you and

In the background I heard a woman’s laugh oh no

I don’t care, I want to end this, Wherever you are, Whatever you do

Now I won’t have anything to do with it, Get out of my way

Don’t suddenly hold on to me and start weeping

Cause I don’t care e e e e e

I don’t care e e e e e

(Source)

난 너 땜에 울며 지새던 밤을 기억해 boy

더 후회할 걸 생각하면 맘이 시원해 boy

날 놓치긴 아깝고 갖기엔 시시하잖니

있을때 잘하지 너 왜 이제와 매달리니

I remember the night I cried until dawn because of you boy

I think I will regret it more if we stay together, now I feel relieved boy

When I’m gone I’m valuable, but when we were together I was nothing

You should have done better back then, why are you are hanging on to me now?

(Source)

As per the pattern, you’d expect this verse to be difficult. And indeed, although line 1 was fine, frankly I can’t make head or tail of line 2 especially, and invite alternative translations.

Literally, it is “more-regret [will]-think [if]-my heart & mind-relief”. But regret what? Not splitting up? And if you think? Arrgh!

As you can see, I came up with something for line 2 that certainly sounds okay, but it’s largely guesswork really. Line 3 and 4 at least though, were simple enough, with my wife telling me that the “있을때 잘하지” in the latter (when you have [them], you have to do well) is often used to express regret about relationships.

(Source)

속아준 거짓말만 해도 수백번

오늘 이후로 난 남자 울리는 bad girl

이젠 눈물 한방울 없이 널 비웃어

사랑이란 게임 속 loser

무릎꿇고 잘못을 뉘우쳐

아님 눈 앞에서 당장 꺼져

Now clap your hands to this

I also know about the hundreds of lies you’ve tricked me with

As of today, I’m a bad girl that makes men cry

Now, without so much as a tear I laugh at you

Love is a loser in this game

Get on your knees and repent

Or get out of my sight

( Source )

With great relief, the pattern was maintained with this last verse(!), and so it was quite easy, only the “속아준” in line 1 throwing me off a little. Normally, saying a verb + “주다” means to do the verb for the speaker, i.e. a request, but how do you  be tricked” for someone (note that “속다” means “be tricked”, wheres “속이다” means ” to trick”)? I gave up, but the native speaker in the other room told me that it basically means that, she, the singer, knows or knew she was being tricked.

I’ll take my wife’s word for it. Other pearls of wisdom from her include “오늘 이후로” in line 2 meaning “as of today”, and “잘못을 뉘우쳐” in line 5 as a whole meaning “repent”, my dictionary just giving the 2nd word.

And not before time, there’s just the chorus after that:

I don’t care 그만할래 니가 어디에서 뭘 하던

이제 정말 상관 안할게 비켜줄래

이제와 울고불고 매달리지마

you know I don`t care e e e e e

I don`t care e e e e e

you know I just don`t care e e e e e

I don`t care e e e e e

Boy I don`t care

And on that note, I hope you enjoyed it, and as always I’m open to and grateful for any help and suggestions for anything you think I made a mistake with, and/or – in this case – simply couldn’t understand.

Before I wrap this up though, one thing I was very surprised about in it was that no matter how bad her boyfriend has been, and no matter how much of a “bad girl” the singer supposedly is now, that she would still take him back if he did indeed repent. Granted, confession and expression of remorse carries considerably more weight in Korean (and Japanese) society than in Western ones. But still, perhaps 2ne1 is not quite as “bad” as I’ve been led to believe all these years then (or only is by restrictive Korean standards for female performers), and it’ll be very interesting to see just how provocative (or not) their lyrics in their other songs are now.

But first, I’ll be translating Like The First Time (처음처럼), by T-ara (티아라):

With lyrics designed to stoke any guy’s ego, and a music video full of eye-candy to boot, Like the First Time (처음처럼) by T-ara (티아라) is a very embarrassing song for a pro-feminist blogger to admit to liking.

Let alone have as his ringtone.

One of the handful of songs that got me addicted to K-pop though, then I’m guess I’m stuck with this peccadillo of mine. But in fairness, I wouldn’t have had it on my old, audio-only iPod for the past year if that’s all it could be be reduced to.

And in hindsight, is it really all that different to, say, You Look So Fine (1999) by Garbage, who to the best of my recollection have never been described as projecting an image of weakness and passivity?

Either way, here’s the remix by DJ Areia that originally got me hooked (downloadable here):

And here’s the original, which for a change I like almost as much:

And here goes with the translation:

왜 자꾸 두근두근대죠 이 내 가슴이

왜 자꾸만 터 터질것 같죠 왜 자꾸만

왜 자꾸 숨이 가빠오죠 미칠것같이

왜 자꾸만 수 숨이 막히죠 왜 자꾸만

첫 사랑도 아닌데 순진한 건 아닌데

그댄 자꾸만 또 자꾸만 또 느끼게 해줘요

Why does my heart throb so often? Why does my chest

often feel like it’s going to burst? Why do I often keep

running out of breath? It’s like I will go crazy

Why do I often feel like I’m suffocating? Why so often?

This is not the first time I’ve fallen in love, I’m not innocent

You often again and again make me feel this way

Nothing too difficult here. First, as we’ve seen in just about every other song translation, again “만” doesn’t mean “only” but is just added for emphasis. Next, “죠”, short for “지요” is an ending meaning “right” that turns the sentence into a tag question, but I haven’t put it like that in the text because just like in English, tag questions often aren’t real questions, and clearly aren’t here (again, they just seem to be for emphasis). Finally, there’s the construction “~ㄹ 것 같다” which is used twice, and literally means ” [future tense]-thing-same [as]“, or effectively “it seems like/looks like/appears that … will do/be”; hence “Why does my chest often feel like it’s going to burst?” and “It’s like I will go crazy”, although admittedly the latter doesn’t sound that great in English.

One thing of great interest to me personally though, because it sort of came up in another translation, is the “오다” added to “가쁘다” in 3, with a tag question at the end added on top of that giving “가빠오죠”. Now “가쁘다” means “gasping [panting] for breath; difficulty in breathing”, but what does the “오다” (“come”) added to that do to it? Well, this is what I originally learned, from page 16 of the grammar and vocabulary guidebook that comes with 5A of the Sogang Korean series:

If you’d rather have an English explanation though, then this is what my trusty Korean Grammar for International Learners (KGIL) says on page 340:

When ["오다" & "가다" are] expressed as auxiliary verbs, they signify that an action is carried out continuously and repeatedly over a period of time. In keeping with the original meaning of these verbs, the patterns [above] mean “continuous performance of an action over time in the past as one comes toward the ‘present and continuous’ performance of an action over time into the future (away from the present)” respectively.

Quite a mouthful unfortunately, which I think it could be better edited (I’m sure an “and” is missing in it), and I think the above diagram is a must to make any sense of it! But hopefully, now you can see why I chose “Why do I often keep running out of breath?” for “왜 자꾸 숨이 가빠오죠” at least, rather than “Why do I often run of breath?”. Granted, they effectively mean the same thing, and “Why do I keep running out of breath” would sound better in English (like in the translation in the video). But with the “자꾸” is  still in the Korean unfortunately, then I’ll allow it to awkwardly remain in the English too (and same logic goes for line 6).

그댄 나를 기쁘게 해요 그댄 나를 느끼게 해요

처 처음처럼 처 처음처럼 처 처음처럼

그댄 나를 미치게 해요 자꾸자꾸 원하게 해요

처 처음처럼 처 처음처럼 처 처음처럼

처 처음처럼처럼처럼 처럼처럼처럼처럼

처 처음처럼처럼처럼 처럼처럼처럼처럼

처 처음처럼처럼 처처처처럼처럼

처럼처럼처럼처럼 처처처처처음처럼

You make me feel happy You make me feel you

Like the first time Like the first time Like the first time

You make me feel crazy I want you again and again

Like the first time, like the first time…(etc)

Easy as, but it’s just impossible for me to do a literal translation and keep a straight face sorry: for instance the first line would be “As for you – me – joyfully – do” then “As for you – me – feelingly – do”…gotta love the way Korean uses adverbs. More seriously though, I don’t think “기쁘다” should ever be translated as “joyfully” in English (the first entry in Korean dictionaries, but used by precisely zero native speakers), and it’s a red flag for me for any translator that does.

After that, I think “again and again” is more appropriate than the literal Korean “often often”.

왜 자꾸 열이 나는 거죠 온몸이 자꾸

왜 자꾸만 다 달아오르죠 왜 자꾸만

왜 자꾸 아찔아찔 하죠 정신이 없어

왜 자꾸만 주 죽을것 같죠 왜 자꾸만

사랑 사랑 지금껏 말로만 했던건지

그댈 만나고 난 느껴요 난 진짜 사랑이 뭔지

Why do I often get this fever, Why does my whole body

often burn, Why do I often

get so dizzy and lightheaded, It’s crazy

Why is it often like I’m going to die, Why did I often

love through only words before now

After meeting you I feel it, I [know] what real love is

Again easy, but it’s difficult to know where one clause and/or sentence begins and the other ends, although of course the resulting numerous translations would all pretty much amount to the same thing.

Just 3 things of note. First, that although “정신이 없어” on line 3 is literally “without a mind”, “mindless”, or “absent-minded”, and that it’s especially tempting to translate it in that vein given the context of the “왜 자꾸 아찔아찔 하죠” before it (“Why do I often get so dizzy and lightheaded”), in reality it’s most often said to express one’s annoyance at some crazy and/or untenable situation. Like me trying to write this post with two toddlers literally climbing all over me and the desk demanding to listen to KARA for instance, or both of them bawling their eyes out when I tell them 5 times every other night is quite enough.

Next, the “주” in “왜 자꾸만 주 죽을것 같죠” on line 3 (“Why is it often like I’m going to die”) is just to emphasize to the “death” part (“죽다”).

Finally, in line 6 the “건지” in “했던건지” had me stumped for a little while. The “던”, of course, refers to “recollection of a state in the past, or of a repeated, habitual, or uncompleted action in the past”, and the “~았/었/였” form before that “gives clearer expression to the notion of ‘completeness’ and also expresses experience” (KGIL, pp. 318-19), but “건지”? Then I realized it was short for “것인지”, or literally “thing-is-yes?”, another way of saying “I guess”.

그댄 나를 기쁘게 해요 그댄 나를 느끼게 해요

처 처음처럼 처 처음처럼 처 처음처럼

그댄 나를 미치게 해요 자꾸자꾸 원하게 해요

처 처음처럼 처 처음처럼 처 처음처럼

처 처음처럼처럼처럼 처럼처럼처럼처럼

처 처음처럼처럼처럼 처럼처럼처럼처럼

처 처음처럼처럼 처처처처럼처럼

You make me feel happy You make me feel you

Like the first time Like the first time Like the first time

You make me feel crazy I want you again and again

Like the first time, like the first time…(etc)

No explanation: that’s the chorus again!

(Source)

리무진에 champagne bling bling jewelry chain

나를 원해 목이 메인 그런 남자 oh no

항상 발길에 채이는 그런 남잔 just pain

Don’t wanna play this game 꺼져버려 이젠

Now I wanna pump up my gain this is about a man

You know you’re the only man 넌 나를 너무 잘 알기에

나를 기쁘게 기쁘게 기쁘게 해줘

나를 느끼게 느끼게 느끼게 해줘

Limousine champagne bling bling jewelry chain

I don’t want a man who wants me so badly he chokes oh no

I don’t want a man who always gets pushed around by a woman just pain

Don’t wanna play this game Get lost now

Now I wanna pump up my gain this is about a man

Now I wanna pump up my gain this is about a man Since you know me so well

You make me happy happy happy

You make me happy happy happy

(Source)

Finishing the translation of this song late last night, and composing an introduction to (hopefully) pique your interest as I fell asleep, then that was the first thing I wrote this morning. In hindsight though, it’s a little frivolous for how provocative this verse is.

In particular, lines 2 & 3. But as they were also the hardest parts of the song to translate, then I’ll keep the introduction as it is for now just in case I’ve misinterpreted them.

The difficulty was because at first, little things meant that they were quite different to what you’d expect given the rest of the song. For instance, there’s a phrase “사랑에 목을 메다”  which means you’re very in love with someone, so much so that you’re sort of hanging around their neck all the time. But then in line 2 it’s not actually  “목이” but “목을”, and “목을 메다” means “choke”.

With that in mind, then “나를 원해 목이 메인 그런 남자” literally gives “me-want-choke-kind of-man”, which was very very easy to interpret as “a man that wants to choke me”. But to put it mildly, that raised alarm bells. Instead, there’s really 2 clauses here “나를 원해” and “목이 메인 그런 남자”, giving “me-want”  and “choke-kind of-man”, and cobbling those together I came up with “I don’t want a man who wants me so badly he chokes”.

That seemed out of place, but it made sense in the context of line 3, “항상 발길에 채이는 그런 남잔” literally being “always-a kick-get kicked-kind-of-man”, but which I interpreted as “always-gets kicked [pushed around]-kind of-man”, and presumably by his female partner. The English “just pain” cobbled on the end of that though, is probably just virtually random English, and too much shouldn’t be read into it.

Taken all together then, then there’s a huge double standard: the female protagonist is free to feel powerless in wake of her desire for her man, but a man that feels the same way about her, and is prepared to spend a lot of money on and get pushed around by her to win her heart? That’s unacceptable.

Which is fine I suppose. But why I say the verse is provocative though, is that given the context of the woman’s weakness and passivity in the song as a whole, then I’m left with the uneasy feeling that she at least wouldn’t mind if things were reversed. That she wants to be dominated by him.

What do you think? Is there something to that, or should I reconsider after having my second coffee?

Either way, that’s it, but for the chorus again:

(Source)

그댄 나를 기쁘게 해요 그댄 나를 느끼게 해요

처 처음처럼 처 처음처럼 처 처음처럼

그댄 나를 미치게 해요 자꾸자꾸 원하게 해요

처 처음처럼 처 처음처럼 처 처음처럼

처 처음처럼처럼처럼 처럼처럼처럼처럼

처 처음처럼처럼처럼 처럼처럼처럼처럼

처 처음처럼처럼 처처처처럼처럼

처럼처럼처럼처럼

You make me feel happy You make me feel you

Like the first time Like the first time Like the first time

You make me feel crazy I want you again and again

Like the first time, like the first time…(etc)

For more on T-ara and (indirectly) this song and the surreal ads above, see here and here. Meanwhile, for those of you that like your K-pop gossip, netizens are very concerned about Hyo-min’s (효민) recent excessive weightloss, the main character in the music video.

Next song to be translated: Oh! (오!) by Girls’ Generation (소녀시대), with a very similar narrative to this one.

Apologies for not providing the lyrics for Girls’ Generation’s (소녀시대) 2010 hit Oh!(오!) as promised, but then I’m much too addicted to DJ Areia’s remix of this one at the moment. And just like that of Oh!, which instantly got me into mainstream K-pop despite a whole decade of simply loathing it, this one has rendered an otherwise mediocre song into, well, something magical for me.

Music quality aside though, a much more striking parallel with Oh!is its narrative of helplessness, passivity, and sexual desire but both inexperience and inability to act on it, in turn very similar to Like the First Time (처음처럼) by T-ara (티아라) and Breathe (비리드) by Miss A (미쓰에이) as already discussed in previous posts. Which is not to say that all songs by Girls’ Generation or those other groups are like that of course, and in particular I’ve heard that Run Devil Run and Hoot! are quite different. But still, jumping ahead to the conclusion of a project I’m working on at the moment, there does seem to be a definite paucity of song themes for popular Korean girl groups these days.

Alternatively, you could argue that this isn’t really an official song of theirs at all, but rather part of an Asia-wide marketing campaign for Intel’s 2nd Generation Core™ processors, and in which case it should possibly be viewed more as something aimed at a very techie audience, and therefore assumed to be a largely male one. If so, then that might also explain all the obvious double entendres in it, which although not surprising in themselves (Korean advertising and popular culture are full of them), are most definitely aimed at men here.

Either way, but for their regulation hot pants (which have less sexual connotations in Korea than they do in Western countries anyway), actually you might never have realized this from the music video itself, in which all 9 women appear even more cute and innocent than normal. Those of you who would still like to maintain that rather naive image of them then (and there’s an awful lot of you, both in Korea and in Western countries!), by all means feel free to watch the video with DJ Areia’s remix below, followed by the slow – nay, appalling – original under that, as well as all the screenshots provided courtesy of this 26MB(!) zip file from Red and Rosy. As for the lyrics though…well, read them at your peril!

Update: I’ve rewritten some of the lyrics in response to a commenter’s suggestions, many of which require a great deal of extra explanation. Rather than add those explanations to the post though (which would mean completely rewriting it), I’ve indicated the changes with an asterisk, with a number next to that to indicate what part of this comment to refer to for the explanation:

One Two Three Four 짜릿하게 어머나

One Two Three Four 너를 원해 이미 난

One Two Three Four 솔직한 내 맘을 다 들켜버릴래 다 들려줄래

촉촉촉 오 달콤한 내 입술에 Come Come Come 천천히 그래 다가와

Tic Tac Toe 오 아찔하게 네게 푹 빠져버린걸 녹아버린걸

One Two Three Four Oh, how exciting (*1)

One Two Three Four, I already want you

One Two Three Four, I want to tell you all my honest feelings, I want them to be discovered (*2)

Yes, oh, come come come to my sweet, moist lips

Tic Tac Toe, Oh, you make me hot and giddy…Despite myself, I’ve deeply fallen and melted for you (*4,6)

First up in what turns out to be the chorus, in line 1 the “게” in”짜릿하게” make the word look like an adverb, which would give…er….”tinglingly”, but following the advice of commenters on the last translation then I’ve wisely tried to sever the mental link I’ve long had between “-게” forms and adverbs (especially as “짜릿하다” could just as well be “thrilling” say). Meanwhile, “어머나” is an expression of surprise that is almost exclusively used by women, the closest English equivalent I could think of being “Oh my!”, although in practice it’s usually said very quickly (and so just “Oh!” might be better).

Next, in line 3, “들켜버릴래” is a combination of “들키다” (to be found out, discovered, caught etc.), “버리다” (literally to throw away, but when added to another verb gives a sense of relief and/or completeness in finishing the act”, and then “~ㄹ래” (to want to do the verb). And so after all that,  then, “I want to tell you all my honest feelings” seems more than sufficient, but nevertheless the Korean includes the superfluous “들려줄래”, or “I want them to be discovered”. Possibly it just makes the words flow better, and indeed there does seem to be a lot of nonsense words in the song as a whole for that reason.

Finally, line 5 – “Tic Tac Toe 오 아찔하게 네게 푹 빠져버린걸 녹아버린걸” – is literally “Tic Tac Toe – oh – dizzily – to you – fall + 버리다 + thing – melt + 버리다 + thing”. As you can see, I thought “dizzily” was fine in this case (although probably “I’m dizzy” is okay), but really don’t understand why the fall and melt parts were in the “~ㄴ걸” (thing) form.

Update: The “~ㄴ걸” form isn’t as simple as I first thought. As discussed in #4 and #6 of that later comment I refer to, this explanation from Korean Grammar for International Learners (KGIL) is required (pages 224-225):

처음 느낀 이 감정 My Deep Love Core

점점 뜨거워지는 얼굴 숨이 막히는 순간 어쩌지

떨리고 있어

Boy boy boy boy bo bo bo boy boy boy boy

고민고민 해봐도 모르겠어

상상만으론 정말로 하나도 오 how to do my first kiss

Just wait a minute?

Boy boy boy boy bo bo bo boy boy boy boy

망설이지 말고 my love get into my core

This is the first time I’ve had this feeling My Deep Love Core

My face is getting hotter and hotter, and at this moment I can’t breathe. What should I do? (*3, 5)

I’m trembling

Boy boy boy boy bo bo bo boy boy boy boy

I don’t know what to do no matter how much I agonize (*see below)

No matter how I think through it over again and again, I’m just not sure. I truly have no idea, from just imagining [it], how to do my first kiss (*7)

Just wait a minute?

Boy boy boy boy bo bo bo boy boy boy boy

Don’t hesitate my love, get into my core

An awkward verse.

My first problem was with “어쩌지” in line 2, which I mistook for “어쩐지”. That means “so that’s why!”, which made no sense here. Once I realized my mistake though, “어쩌지” wasn’t in my dictionary, and so I turned to my long suffering wife, who said it means “what am I going to do?”.

Next was “고민고민 해봐도 모르겠어” in line 5, which, although I’m sure my translation of “Even though I worry and worry about this, I just can’t solve it” is fine, I was stuck on it for a while because it doesn’t seem to make much sense in the context of the song (learners, note there’s a missing “아무리” at the beginning).

*(Update: with thanks to commenter dogdyedblack, probably “I don’t know what to do no matter how much I agonize” is better).

Both were a doddle though, compared to line 6, “상상만으론 정말로 하나도 오 how to do my first kiss”, literally “imagination – only – through – as for – really – through – one more again – oh”. But my wife said that there should be a “모르겠다” after “하나도”, and that together “하다도 모르겠다” means “I really don’t know”, and with that knowledge and the context then we cobbled “I can’t really do it only in my imagination, I have to do for real, oh how to do my first kiss”. I admit that that might not be the final word though!

Finally, the English “just a minute” in line 7 seems very strange next to the “don’t hesitate” in line 9, but that is definitely what both say. Perhaps the English in line 7 is just something essentially random by the song writers, which happens all the time in K-pop, but then much of the English in the rest of the song suggests otherwise. Get into her core indeed…

Ahem. Anyway, next is the chorus again:

One Two Three Four 짜릿하게 어머나

One Two Three Four 너를 원해 이미 난

One Two Three Four 솔직한 내 맘을 다 들켜버릴래 다 들려줄래

촉촉촉 오 달콤한 내 입술에 Come Come Come 천천히 그래 다가와

Tic Tac Toe 오 아찔하게 네게 푹 빠져버린걸 녹아버린걸

One Two Three Four Oh, how exciting

One Two Three Four, I already want you

One Two Three Four, I want to tell you all my honest feelings, I want them to be discovered

Yes, oh, come come come to my sweet, moist lips

Tic Tac Toe, Oh, you make me hot and giddy…Despite myself, I’ve deeply fallen and melted for you

내 맘 속 visual 너무 완벽해

네 가지 고민 언제 어디서 무엇을 어떻게만 빼고 헤매고 있어

Core Core Core Core Co Co Co Core Core Core Core

우물쭈물 하단 놓칠지 몰라

망설임 the end 여길 봐 두근두근 pop pop 들리지 어때

Core of my love

Core Core Core Core Co Co Co Core Core Core Core

지금이야 바로 start! jump into love core

[When I imagine the scene of our first kiss in my mind, with images pulled from the movies, comics and TV programs I have watched ever since I was little] the visual images in my mind are so perfect (*9)

But for 4 kinds of things not to worry about – when, where, what and how – I’m puzzled

Core Core Core Core Co Co Co Core Core Core Core

If you keep hesitating, you might miss [lose] me

Hesitation, the end, look [listen] here: how is the throb throb pop pop sound [of my heart]?

Core of my love

Core Core Core Core Co Co Co Core Core Core Core

Yes, of course, start right now, jump into love core

The final verse already, unfortunately much of it is completely non-nonsensical. Starting with line 1: “내 맘 속 visual 너무 완벽해” which gives “Inside my heart the visuals are perfect”, which means…well, God knows, but probably alludes to the functions of the chip more than it continues the romantic narrative of the song. But anyway, note that “맘”, short for “마음”, really means something between heart and mind (a phrase difficult to sing well), and in my experience “너무” means “very” just as often as the dictionary definition of “too [much]“.

Next, my wife said that “가지” in line 2 is just another form of the counter word “게”, or “thing”, but I beg to differ: my dictionary gives “a kind, a sort; a variety”. But which is not to say that line 2 – “But for 4 kinds of things to worry about – when, where, what and how – I’m puzzled” – actually makes any sense of course.

After that, line 4 was really tough. But then my wife told me that “하단”, was short for “하다가는”, which fortunately was in KGIL. Which I’ll let you read for yourself (p.280):

As for the rest of line 4, naturally I’m assuming that it’s the object of the female narrator’s affections that shouldn’t hesitate rather than vice-versa, as clearly she doesn’t want to make the first move despite what she repeatedly says she wants him to do to her core. The same goes for line 5, although note that she does say “look here” (“여길 봐”) when “listen to this” would be better, with the “this” surely being her heart.

Finally, the “이야” in line 8 was interesting, which, seeing as I still have my KGIL next to me as I type this and have already cleared the junk off my scanner, I may as well give you page 181 of too (but sorry that I can never seem to get the book straight!):

Note that KGIL gives 4 more meanings for  “이야” depending on what comes immediately after it by the way, but if you want to know those too, then buy the damn book yourself already fortunately none of those apply here.

Finally, there’s the chorus again, the first part of which is repeated twice, and with the addition of 3 extra English lines:

One Two Three Four 짜릿하게 어머나

One Two Three Four 너를 원해 이미 난

One Two Three Four 솔직한 내 맘을 다 들켜버릴래 다 들려줄래

Take you higher / oh my love ooh yeah

visual dreams / 느껴봐 beating of my heart

One Two Three Four 짜릿하게 어머나

One Two Three Four 너를 원해 이미 난

One Two Three Four 솔직한 내 맘을 다 들켜버릴래 다 들려줄래

촉촉촉 오 달콤한 내 입술에

Come Come Come 천천히 그래 다가와

Tic Tac Toe 오 아찔하게 네게 푹 빠져버린걸 녹아버린걸

ooh yeah visualize my love oh yeah

One Two Three Four Oh, how exciting

One Two Three Four, I already want you

One Two Three Four, I want to tell you all my honest feelings, I want them to be discovered

Take you higher / oh my love ooh yeah

visual dreams / try feeling the beating of my heart

One Two Three Four Oh, how exciting

One Two Three Four, I already want you

One Two Three Four, I want to tell you all my honest feelings, I want them to be discovered

Yes, oh, come come come to my sweet, moist lips

Tic Tac Toe, Oh, you make me hot and giddy…Despite myself, I’ve deeply fallen and melted for you

ooh yeah visualize my love oh yeah

Sigh: if only all song translations could be so quick and easy! Still, I have many more to do this month nevertheless, and so expect at least 2 or 3 a week in addition to other posts, starting with So Hot by the Wonder Girrls (원더걸스) on Wednesday or Thursday Sunday, followed by Can’t Nobody by 2NE1 (투애니원) on Friday next week.

Meanwhile, apologies to Girls’ Generation fans, but Oh! will have to wait until next week I’m afraid, as one Girls’ Generation song a week is probably more than enough for many people!

(Source)

It’s been a long time since I’ve thought much about the Wonder Girls (원더걸스).

To be precise, not since writing these posts back in April 2008. And in which I was pretty critical of manager JYP’s (박진영) overly sexual marketing of them, and especially of the Korean public’s collective refusal to acknowledge that. After all, band member Ahn So-hee (안소희) was only 15 at the time.

Maybe too critical though, and since then I’ve written much more nuanced posts on the issues that that raised, partially in response to reading excellent alternative perspectives by Gord Sellar and Matt at Gusts of Popular Feeling. But still, I did feel vindicated when So Hot came out just a few weeks later, especially as it was advertised on mainstream Korean portal sites with GIFs of the music video like these on their front pages. One of which, like Matt wrote, comes from the same point (0:17) as a breathy “Oh! Oh!” in the track, and “if you looped it, you’d have a porn soundtrack.”

Feeling a little smug then, and not particularly liking any of their songs either – they’re generally much too slow for my tastes – I’ve deliberately avoided listening to the Wondergirls ever since. Yet nearly 3 years later, not only do I suddenly find that, like them or not, I have to research them, but literally just as I started MellowYel at Mixtapes and Linear Notes wrote a compelling post in which she argues that, basically, “most South Korean girl group concepts since 2007 have been determined by the Wonder Girls”, and that this points to JYP being simply “great at finding formulas that work”. And she’s by no means the first person to make those arguments to me either, although she is the first to pass on such convincing evidence.

So hey, while I’ll always consider JYP a sexist pig, I can still acknowledge his musical and marketing skills. And in light of those, then it’s high time for me to reconsider the Wondergirls, and I’d be very interested in and would appreciate hearing readers’ own takes on So Hot to start. Particularly on what you think it’s about really, as it seems so narcissistic that it may even be a satire, especially considering the comic elements in the video.

Having just praised JYP’s marketing skills though, then I’m really surprised at the poor quality of the official one available:

For the sake of getting the gist, here’s another one with subtitles, although there’s a few basic mistakes with the English:

Finally, the lyrics themselves, most of which are so easy that they could be featured in lower-intermediate Korean textbooks at least. Certainly they’d make for more interesting classes than discussions of temple visits and making kimchee that are the normal fare:

왜 자꾸 쳐다보니 왜에에

내가 그렇게 예쁘니 이이

아무리 그렇다고 그렇게 쳐다보면

내가 좀 쑥스럽잖니 이이

내가 지나갈 때 마다 아아

고갤 돌리는 남자들 을을

뒤에서 느껴지는 뜨거운 시선들

어떻게 하면 좋을지 이이

Why do you look at me so often? Why~?

Am I that pretty?

No matter how pretty I am, if you look at me like that

I get embarrassed , yes?

Every time I walk past [them]

Men that turn their heads

I feel their hot gazes behind me

If that happens, what’s best to do?

(Source)

Here, the frequent “니” endings are a short, informal version of the very formal “~ㅁ니까” ones for asking questions, which is why I added a question mark to them in lines 1 and 2. Line 4 though, is a little more complicated, because there’s a “잖” (short for “잖아”) in the “쑥스럽다” (“embarrassed”), which is used a lot in daily speech when the listener (albeit only an equal or someone of lower status) already knows well – or should know well – what the speaker is saying, as explained in my scan of pages 130-131 from 한국어 문형 표현 100 below (a wonderful book, which teaches Korean learners the differences between 100 commonly confused grammar points). Having that in a question form though, sounds really strange, and so my wife and I think the nuance of the “잖니” ending is effectively that of a tag question, i.e. “지”. It also implies that she’s really talking to herself too.

Before that, in line 3 the “아무리 그렇다고” basically means “no matter [the previous sentences]“. Then in line 7, “고갤” (short for “고개를”) literally translates as “scruff off the neck”, which can be misleading in this video in particular because, in English, “to take something by the scruff of the neck”  means to completely control it (i.e. precisely what the girls in the video seem to be doing of the men), whereas it really just means “head”.

Next, in line 8, the “지” in “좋을지” is very strange, and I’m not sure that it is a actually a tag question, as I first thought. Either way, my wife assures me that here at least it basically means “~ㄹ까”, an ending you use when you’re asking someone’s opinion, which means she’s literally asking “what is good?”. Hence my “what’s best to do?”.

Finally, although the chorus is very short and easy, I’ll add it separately below, just to make it easier to find. In it, I’ve translated “너무” as “so”, as even though the dictionary gives “too”, in my experience it’s used as “very” (or, indeed, “so”) just as often. I was a little confused by “너무 매력 있어” in line 2 though, because I’ve always learned that “매력” meant “attractiveness”, with “매력적이다” meaning “attractive”. By itself, “매력(이) 있어”, literately “attractiveness have” seems fine too, but what on Earth is the “very’ before that doing there? Is “매력” a noun, an adjective, or what?

It didn’t seem very important, so I gave up and just went with “I’m so attractive”!

(Source)

I′m so hot 난 너무 예뻐요

I′m so fine 난 너무 매력 있어

I′m so cool 난 너무 멋져

I’m so so so hot hot

I’m so hot, I’m so pretty

I’m so fine, I’m so attractive

I’m so cool, I’m so cool

I’m so so so hot hot

(Source)

언제나 나를 향한 눈길들이 이

항상 따라오는 이 남자들이 이

익숙해 질 때도 된 것 같은데

왜 아직도 부담스러운지 이

조용히 살고 싶은데 에에

다른 여자애들처럼 엄엄

엄마는 왜 날 이렇게 나놨어

내 삶을 피곤하게 하는지

Gazes are always turned towards me

These men always follow me

And I think it’s time to get used to it

Why is it still a burden

I just want to live quietly

Just like other girls

Why did my mother give birth to me like this?

I don’t know why something is making my life so tiring

(Source)

Not quite so much to discuss here fortunately.

First in line 3 – “익숙해 질 때도 된 것 같은데” – I confess I don’t know what the “도” (again? also? too?) is doing there exactly, and am open to suggestions, but meanwhile I was “cough” happy to notice the past tense marker “ㄴ” in “된”, giving, literally, “get useㅇ to it – time – 도? – has come – I guess”.

Next, in line 7, “나놨지” had me completely stumped, and no wonder: my wife explained it was a combination of “낳다” (to be born) and “놓다” (to be put). Knowing that, and with the mother mentioned at the beginning, then I think the intention was “Why did my mother make me like this”, as indeed most other translations have put it. That was really tempting, but then at the very least my awkward “Why did my mother give birth to me like this?” does sort of acknowledge the “born” element to the sentence for learners. And, who knows? Maybe the original Korean does indeed more mean she was born the way she was (due to genes), as opposed to being made a certain way (which in English, implies more one’s personality has).

Finally, line 8 is made easier if you know there’s an unspoken “모르겠다” at the end. And as for “피곤하게”, I identified it as a causative construction, as discussed by commenter dogdyedblack here.

Moving on then, next there’s just an extended version of the chorus again:

(Source)

I’m so hot 난 너무 예뻐요

I’m so fine 난 너무 매력있어

I’m so cool 난 너무 멋져

I’m so so so hot hot hot

I’m so hot 난 너무 예뻐요

I’m so fine 난 너무 매력있어

I’m so cool 난 너무 멋져

I’m so so so hot hot hot

Everybody’s watching me, cause I′m hot hot

Everybody’s wanting me, cause I′m hot hot

I’m so hot, I’m so pretty

I’m so fine, I’m so attractive

I’m so cool, I’m so cool

I’m so so so hot hot

I’m so hot, I’m so pretty

I’m so fine, I’m so attractive

I’m so cool, I’m so cool

I’m so so so hot hot

Everybody’s watching me, cause I′m hot hot

Everybody’s wanting me, cause I′m hot hot

(Source: unknown)

언제나 어디서나 날 따라 다니는 이 스포트 라이트

어딜 가나 쫓아오지 식당 길거리 카페 나이트

도대체 얼마나 나일 들어야

이놈의 인기는 시그러들지 원

섹시한 내 눈은 고소영

아름다운 내 다리는 좀 하지 원

어쩌면 좋아 모두 나를 좋아 하는것 같애

Oh no, lease leave me alone

All the boys be loving me, girls be hating me

They will never stop, cause they know I’m so hot hot

Everywhere, all the time, this spotlight that follows me

Chases me wherever I go: restaurants; the streets; cafes; nightclubs

How old do I have to get in order for

my damn popularity to wither? Sigh…

My sexy eyes [are like] Go So-young’s

My beautiful legs [are a] little [like] Ha Ji-won’s

What should I do to make things good? I guess everybody loves me

Oh no, please leave me alone

All the boys be loving me, girls be hating me

They will never stop, cause they know I’m so hot hot

(Helpful picture of Go So-young’s “sexy eyes”. Source)

First up, in lines 1 & 2, I’m a little confused as to why “this spotlight” (이 스포트라이트), which is modified by the relative clause “that follows me” (날 따라 다니는), is later described as chasing her (쫓아오지, with the “지” probably being a tag question), which seems to be unnecessary repetition; but it’s there, so hence the awkward English.

Next, the “어야” ending at the end of line 3 had me stumped for a while, as while it’s clearly not the same as the “이야” described on page 181 of Korean Grammar for International Learners (KGIL), as discussed in the last song translation, I wasn’t entirely sure that it was the very basic “~어/아/야 하다” form, which means having to do something. Eventually though, I discovered something on pages 307-308, which not only doesn’t require a “하다”, but connects it much better to the next sentence:

Line 4 after that has the wonderful “이놈의”, which means “damn”, and the final “원” in it is rarely found in written form, but basically means “sigh”. The meaning of the “지” in “시그러들다” though (to wither), I confess left my wife and I completely stumped.

Finally, at first I though the  “어쩌면” in line 7 was simply the dictionary definition of “어쩌다” (1 – occasionally; 2) accidentally, unexpectedly) plus “면” (usually “if”),  but my wife told me that the full phrase “어쩌면 좋아” means “What should I do to make [it, things] good”, which makes it very similar to the “어쩌지” of the last song translation (see #3 here for more on that).

And but for one final round of the chorus, that’s that!

(Likewise, of one of Ha Ji-won’s “beautiful legs”. Source)

I′m so hot 난 너무 예뻐요

I′m so fine 난 너무 매력 있어

I′m so cool 난 너무 멋져

I’m so so so hot hot

I’m so hot, I’m so pretty

I’m so fine, I’m so attractive

I’m so cool, I’m so cool

I’m so so so hot hot

As always, thanks in advance for pointing out any mistakes, and or giving alternate translations – I really learn a lot from them. And with this particular song, like I said I’m a little stumped as to what its about really, so thanks also for any insights you can give me!

(Source, all screenshots)

For many Korean girl groups, debuting a new song on a music program seems to follow a set script these days:

• First, it will include some provocative lyrics, choreography, and/or outfits that deliberately push the envelope
• Then, despite presumably knowing that well in advance, the producers of the program will still allow the song to be performed, only then to disassociate themselves from it and claim shock and surprise at the ensuing reaction
• Next, those songs will be will be banned from future broadcasts unless changes to the offending parts are made
• Equally absurdly, the performers themselves or their entertainment companies will claim shock and surprise that people find them sexually suggestive at all
• Finally, despite those protestations, the groups will have modified versions of the song available to be used suspiciously quickly

It’s really quite a farcical process, and very patronizing to viewers.

Nevertheless, while nobody emerges unblemished from all that, it’s the entertainment companies that I’m most critical of. For rather than actually admitting to the sexuality in their groups’ performances, thereby placing the onus on the music program producers and public to explain just what is it that is so problematic about that exactly, instead they even force their own performers to be complicit in a long-held narrative of female virginity and innocence in K-pop.

Granted, they may lack the clout to challenge terrestrial broadcasters on that point, nor is there much evidence that they possess the feminist motivations to do so. However, even just for financial reasons one would expect more of a challenge to systematic double standards in the Korean music industry, as the various restrictions on girl group performances can often be quite costly.

(Source)

As for how that all recently played out with Mirror Mirror (거울아 거울아) by 4Minute (포미닛), see the links in the list above, while Mixtapes and Liner Notes has more on Rania’s (라니아) performance of Dr. Feel Good (닥터 필 굿) specifically. Two of the three controversial songs that debuted on Music Bank on April the 8th (the other was Do You Know/아나요 by the Brave Girls/브레이브 걸스), unfortunately Mirror Mirror is the only one of them I like enough to listen to – yes, sans eye-candy – on my MP3 player!

Yes, however crass, it does indeed sound like Hyuna is saying “4 minute slut” at the beginning. As for the translation, the vocabulary and grammar were relatively easy for a change, and the song mercifully short and repetitive too. But some unclear breaks between sentences and strange word orders definitely complicated things:

Let’s go

4minutes left 4minutes left Ah! Ah!

4minutes left 4minutes left Ah! Ah!

대체 왜 그땐 날 거들떠 보지 않고

매일 날 그대만 바라보게 만들고

오늘은 좀더 예쁘게 나 나 나 날 (오늘도)

보여줘 너무 멋진 너 너 너 너 너에게

거울아 거울아 이 세상에 누가 제일 예쁘니?

거울아 거울아 이 세상에 내가 제일 예쁘니?

오늘만은 내가 제일 예쁘다고 말해줘 봐

Let’s go

4minutes left 4minutes left Ah! Ah!

4minutes left 4minutes left Ah! Ah!

Why on Earth didn’t you notice me back then?

Everyday, you made me gaze only at you

Today, show me me me me a little more prettily  (today too)

To very cool you you you you

Hey Mirror, hey Mirror, who is the prettiest in the world?

Hey Mirror, hey Mirror, am I the prettiest in the world?

Just for today, please try saying I’m the prettiest

Here, “대체” is short for “도대체” (on Earth), and a new one for me was “거들떠보다” (not even notice/look). Otherwise:

• the “바라보게 만들다” in line 4 is a long causative, which there’s a lot of in this song (see p. 368 of Korean Grammar for International Learners [KGIL] for more information)
• See Seamus Walsh’s comment here for more on the “니” ending in lines 7 and 8
• And of course the last line is some simple indirect speech. Although it’s awkward in English, I include a “try” in it (and similar sentences in later verses) because technically, “보다” added to a verb stem does indeed mean “try to do [the verb]“

All basic stuff by this, my twelfth song translation for the blog. But lines 3 and 4 were a bit of a stumbling block until my wife pointed out that actually a break falls between “오늘은 좀더 예쁘게 나 나 나 날 (오늘도) 보여줘” and “너무 멋진 너 너 너 너 너에게”.

너를 생각하면 더 거울에 비친 내 모습은 마치

너무 예쁜데 너는 자꾸 왜 다른 생각만 하는지

왜 날 보지 않는건데

내 거울아 (거울아 거울아 거울아 거울아)

거울아 (거울아 거울아 거울아 거울아)

내 거울아 (거울아 거울아 거울아 거울아)

거울아 (거울아 거울아 거울아 거울아)

It’s as if my reflection becomes prettier the more I think of you

Why do you frequently think differently?

Why do you not look at me?

My mirror (Hey Mirror Hey Mirror Hey Mirror Hey Mirror)

Hey Mirror (Hey Mirror Hey Mirror Hey Mirror Hey Mirror)

My mirror (Hey Mirror Hey Mirror Hey Mirror Hey Mirror)

Hey Mirror (Hey Mirror Hey Mirror Hey Mirror Hey Mirror)

Again, Lines 1 & 2 become much easier if you know there’s a break between “너를 생각하면 더 거울에 비친 내 모습은 마치 너무 예쁜데” and “너는 자꾸 왜 다른 생각만 하는지”, but this time the location of the “더” complicates things even further. Ideally, it should be placed before the “예쁜데” in line 2.

Update: With thanks to J.Goard for pointing out it, actually that pattern is perfectly acceptable in Korean, and quite common.

대체 왜 언제나 본 체 만 체만 하고

매일 밤 너는 날 가슴 뛰게 만들어

언제나 너무 멋진 너 너 너 너 너

내게로 다가오게 더 더 더 더 더 Ma boy

거울아 거울아 이 세상에 누가 제일 예쁘니?

거울아 거울아 이 세상에 내가 제일 예쁘니?

처음부터 마음에 들었다고 내게 말해줘 봐

Why on Earth do you always pretend not to see me, and

make my heart pound every night?

Always so cool you you you you you

Come more more more more and more closer to me Ma boy

Hey Mirror, hey Mirror, who is the prettiest in the world?

Hey Mirror, hey Mirror, am I the prettiest in the world?

Please try to say that from the beginning, I was the one for you

And here, again there’s a long causative in line 2 – “가슴 뛰게 만들어” – but the “날” before that (me [object]) is I think ungrammatical, and it should really say “내” (my) instead. Before that, the phrase “본 체 만 체” (pretend not to see; show indifference to; slight) was a new one on me, and it didn’t help that I forgot that “[verb] + (으)ㄴ/는 체하다” was the same as “[verb] + (으)ㄴ/는 척하다” (to pretend to [verb])”! (see p. 58 of KGIL)

Next, it’s just the chorus again.

너를 생각하면 더 거울에 비친 내 모습은 마치

너무 예쁜데 너는 자꾸 왜 다른 생각만 하는지

왜 날 보지 않는건데 예~

내 거울아 (거울아 거울아 거울아 거울아)

거울아 (거울아 거울아 거울아 거울아)

내 거울아 (거울아 거울아 거울아 거울아)

거울아 (거울아 거울아 거울아 거울아)

It’s as if my reflection becomes prettier the more I think of you

Why do you frequently think differently?

Why do you not look at me?

My mirror (Hey Mirror Hey Mirror Hey Mirror Hey Mirror)

Hey Mirror (Hey Mirror Hey Mirror Hey Mirror Hey Mirror)

My mirror (Hey Mirror Hey Mirror Hey Mirror Hey Mirror)

Hey Mirror (Hey Mirror Hey Mirror Hey Mirror Hey Mirror)

Oh mirror shine Let me fix my make up

Break it down Break it down

Baby I like that Baby baby just I like that

Baby I like that Baby baby just I like that

더 더 더 내게 빠져들어

Shine on my face 모두 놀라지 Oh

거울아 거울아 이 세상에서 누가 제일 예쁘니? It’s me

Oh mirror shine Let me fix my make up

Break it down Break it down

Baby I like that Baby baby just I like that

Baby I like that Baby baby just I like that

Become fallen into me more more more

Shine on my face everybody surprised Oh

Hey Mirror, hey Mirror, who is the prettiest in the world? It’s me

In line 5, I was confused by how “빠져들어” is different to “빠지다” (to fall into/for), and the best explanation my wife could provide was that it means “become fallen for”. Which is just fine with me, but it does sound a little awkward.  Can anybody do any better?

Update: With thanks again to J.Goard, see here for a much fuller description of how they’re different exactly.

And suddenly it’s already the last verse:

좀더 너에게 다가가서 난 1,2 step 1,2 step 1,2 step

Let’s live it up Let’s make it up

나를 보면 니 마음 흔들릴수 있게

내 거울아 (거울아 거울아 거울아 거울아)

거울아 (거울아 거울아 거울아 거울아)

내 거울아 (거울아 거울아 거울아 거울아)

거울아 (거울아 거울아 거울아 거울아)

거울아 거울아 거울아 거울아

I’ll come a little closer to you, I 1,2 step 1,2 step 1,2 step

Let’s live it up Let’s make it up

If you see me I can make your heart shake

My mirror (Hey Mirror Hey Mirror Hey Mirror Hey Mirror)

Hey Mirror (Hey Mirror Hey Mirror Hey Mirror Hey Mirror)

My mirror (Hey Mirror Hey Mirror Hey Mirror Hey Mirror)

Hey Mirror (Hey Mirror Hey Mirror Hey Mirror Hey Mirror)

And on that note, here is an alternate translation by Chris @4-minute.com, which you can use to follow-along with the video:

As you can see, fortunately our versions seem pretty much the same, although his(?) sounds rather better because he hasn’t been quite so literal with his choice of words!

Meanwhile, apologies to any readers that may have been expecting a promised(?) translation of Can’t Nobody by 2NE1 (투애니원) instead today, but unfortunately my finally getting tired of that after listening to it for probably the 100th time(!) coincided with me getting heavily into this one, and besides which I wanted to do something more recent for a change. Having said that, next I’ll actually be doing the 2005 song Girls on Top by BoA (보아), because a reader sent me the following intriguing email:

…I have been following your girl group lyric translations but there’s one song I am really curious about, mostly because I’d like to know if it’s as overtly feminist as I suspect it is. The song would be Boa’s “Girls on Top”…

…It’s not only the gold lamé and skull ring that’s tough but the part at the end where she fake kicks her male dancers into submission in a Take Back the Night inspired bit of of pop choreography. I know you’re focusing mostly on girl groups, but I think this one’s interesting in the context of K-pop because it seems to fall outside the two ever present concepts of “sexy” and “cute.” I have tried to find the lyrics in English but most of them are poorly done. What I’ve gleaned so far is that she may be talking about the myriad conflicting expectations a modern girl must fulfill and might even be bemoaning the constant pressure to embody male views of sexiness (!). Or it could be a girl power-lite anthem conceived by greedy business men; but either way I’d like to hear your views.

Until then, I hope you a good weekend, and as always I’d appreciate any feedback on the translation and/or your thoughts on the song!^^

Update: I’ve just found these profiles of the group members on korean lovers photoblog, and thought they might be useful for future reference:

(For more Korean song translations, please see here)

(Source)

Why open a post about music with a mascara ad? Good question, to which the simple answer would be that Girls on Top came out nearly 6 years ago, and high-quality, eye-catching images of BoA from back then are hard to find. But also, quite serendipitously, it does help focus our minds on just how unconventional the song is.

In particular, ponder how “sexy” she appears in it. With her exposed navel; navel piercing; hand thrust in jeans; tight clothes; confident gaze at the viewer; hole in her clothes deliberately revealing her chest; and long windswept hair, then she’s every inch the sexually-empowered and assertive female, or at least modern advertising’s definition of one.

But still, that slight body cant does look a little awkward. And with her head raised back, accentuated by the BDSM-like clothing that covers her neck, then surely I’m not the only one reminded of poses you usually only see done by porn stars.

And just how sexy do those porn stars themselves feel doing them? Take Alex Arden for instance, a former Penthouse “Pet of the Month” (July 2001, if you’re curious):

When you get yourself into the really contortionist position that you’ve got to hold up and your back hurts and you’ve got to suck in your stomach, you’ve got to stick your hips out, you’ve got to arch your back and you’ve got to stick your butt out all at the same time and suck in and hold your breath, you don’t feel sexy. You feel pain. And you feel like you want to kill [the photographer].

Like Ariel Levy says in Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture, from which that was taken (p. 42), “if sexy means passionate or invested in one’s own fantasies and sexual proclivities, then the pictorials [in Penthouse] don’t quite do it.” Nor, I’d wager, that ad.

Now compare the back and front covers of her Girls on Top album from 2005:

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About which her Wikipedia page says:

BoA reinvented her image on her fourth Korean album, My Name (2004); she left the “cute” and “youthful” style that had characterized previous years and presented herself as “sexy” and “sultry”.^[7][19] The album was the beginning of a foray into the Chinese market and contained two songs sung in Mandarin Chinese.^[19] The sales of BoA’s Korean albums began to decline: the album sold 191,000 units and became the eleventh-best-selling South Korean album of the year.^[20] Her fifth Korean album, Girls on Top, continued her image change. The album portrayed the singer as more “mature and self-confident” and was a “declaration of war on male chauvinism”; the “bohemian” look of the cover photograph represented “freedom and depth”, while music videos and album photographs that portrayed BoA in traditional Korean dress brought the “idea of Korean womanhood” into her music. The album also continued BoA’s foray into the Chinese market and, like the previous album, contained Mandarin Chinese songs.^[21] The album sold less than the previous album; it was the fourteenth-best-selling record of the year in South Korea with 113,000 units sold.^[22]

Granted, the album covers don’t set out to present a sexy image of BoA per se. But if one considers the subjects themselves feeling sexy to be essential to them looking attractive (and hey, it’s important enough to affect the way women rate men at least), then those covers win by default (my weakness for smouldering stares notwithstanding!).

Which leads me to the song itself, which I chose to look at because a reader sent me the following intriguing email:

…I have been following your girl group lyric translations but there’s one song I am really curious about, mostly because I’d like to know if it’s as overtly feminist as I suspect it is…

…It’s not only the gold lamé and skull ring that’s tough but the part at the end where she fake kicks her male dancers into submission in a Take Back the Night inspired bit of of pop choreography. I know you’re focusing mostly on girl groups, but I think this one’s interesting in the context of K-pop because it seems to fall outside the two ever present concepts of “sexy” and “cute.” I have tried to find the lyrics in English but most of them are poorly done. What I’ve gleaned so far is that she may be talking about the myriad conflicting expectations a modern girl must fulfill and might even be bemoaning the constant pressure to embody male views of sexiness (!). Or it could be a girl power-lite anthem conceived by greedy business men; but either way I’d like to hear your views.

Whereas the concept of “cute” really needs no explanation, it’s the mascara ad that helped me realize what version of “sexy” BoA might have been trying to avoid – and challenge – in Girls on Top (although I beg to differ on that being a “male view of [female] sexiness”, and would argue that it’s more a media one). Certainly the choreography and costumes give that impression:

As do the lyrics in this English version, although unfortunately they don’t at all match the Korean ones (and, call me picky, but that picture of her is actually from 2010!):

Or at least, what I think the Korean ones are. Maybe I’m just rusty, as it’s been 2 months since I last translated any song lyrics, but even my wife and sister-in-law really struggled with understanding some of these ones, let alone with what they might be in English. I apologize in advance for the numerous mistakes then, and would really appreciate any corrections:

모든게 나에게 여자가 여자다운 것을 강요해

날 바라보는 네 야릇한 시선들이 난 싫어

(약한 여자 사랑에 약한 여자)

내게 강요하지마 틀에 갇혀버릴 내가 아닌 걸

(내뜻대로) 전부 나의 뜻대로

Everything forces me to be feminine

I hate your strange stares as you gaze at me

(A woman that goes crazy in love, a woman that goes crazy in love)

Don’t force me, don’t confine me in a cage

(My way) Everything done my way

(Source)

Line 1 is literally “everything-to me-woman-womanly-thing-force”, which hopefully gives you an inkling of how open to interpretation these song lyrics are. Next, in line 2, “야릇하다” means “odd; queer; strange; peculiar; curious; mysterious” according to my electronic dictionary, but I’d be interested in hearing from someone who gets much more everyday speaking practice than me (probably most of you!) if it has connotations of “sleazy” or something like that, which sounds more appropriate for the song. Either way, in line 3 by “crazy in love” I mean someone who gets distracted and/or can’t think straight when in love rather than being deeply in love, and finally in line 4 “틀” is technically a “frame” that she’s confined to, but – after being distracted by the “think outside of the box” idiom for a while – I think “cage” works better in English.

Next is the chorus:

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나는 나인걸 누구도 대신 하지 말아

(그렇게 만만하게 넘어갈 내가 아니야)

내 모습 그대로 당당하고 싶어

(그늘에 갇혀 사는 여자를 기대하진 마)

I am myself, nobody can replace me

(I’m not someone who lets go easily like that)

Myself, I want to be confident

Don’t expect a woman who hides in the shade

(Source)

Two things in this verse, I couldn’t have understood without a native speaker to help. The first in line 1 – “나는 나인걸”, literally “I am myself” – probably because my Korean isn’t remotely as good as I like to think, but “넘어가다” in line 2 has no less than 11 meanings, only the last of which “be swallowed; be choked down; be taken/got down; be drunk in” sounds remotely like the “let go [take/endure it]” that my wife said it means.

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섹시한 차분한 영원히 한 남자만 아는 따분함 그건 바로 착각 모든 남자들의 관심사

난 이 세상을 모두 바꿔버릴 꿈을 다 가진걸

Get it up 난 부족해 Get it up 모든 게 다 말이 되지 않잖아

그들만의 평등 같은 건 그대들이 만든 기준에 맞게

The boring notion [that women] want forever to be with only one sexy, quiet man is a direct illusion that all men are under

A dream I have can change everything in this world

Get it up I am insufficient Get it up Everything doesn’t make sense

Their thing like equality only matches their standards

(Source)

Yeah, I liked the “get it up” too, a barb very appropriate for the tone of this song, but the level of the Konglish in the rest of the song means it’s probably accidental. And any humor I found in it was soon ruined by trying to figure out those god-awful opening couple of lines, which I wish I’d realized much earlier (and have consequently presented as) were actually just the one.

In a nutshell, they say “sexy-quiet/calm-eternally-one-man only-know-boredom/weariness-that-directly-illusion-all-man’s-affair/interest”. After half an hour’s discussion between my wife, sister-in-law, and I (and – for good measure – my daughters trying to get us to talk about farting instead), we think that “The boring notion [that women] want forever to be with only one sexy, quiet man is a direct illusion that all men are under” is what is meant, but accept that – repeated distracting farting sounds aside – it doesn’t really make sense in the context of the song, and so are more than open to alternatives.

Meanwhile, it’s my significant other that says that “말이 되지 않잖아” means “doesn’t make sense”. And on that note – lest we’ve made mistakes with those also – that from “Get it up” to the final “맞게” was originally 3 lines, but I’ve rearranged them so that they make sense for you at least!

Next is the chorus again, then the next verse. But I don’t think there’s really anything to explain in it, although I’m quite happy to if anyone wants me to:

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모든게 나에게 여자가 여자다운 것을 강요해

더 이상은 참지 말아

Shake it Everything I like that

마음을 더 열어봐 우린 같은 곳을 향해가잖아

모두 함께 영원할텐데

서로 다른 성일뿐 존재하기 위한 인간인걸

Why 이젠 부정하지마

Everything forces me to be feminine

Don’t endure it any more

Shake it Everything I like that

Try opening my heart more, we both want the same thing

With everything eternally

Each other, we are humans that only exist to be different sexes

Why Now don’t deny it

(Source)

남자들 모두가 세상의 진리는 절대로 불변의 법칙이라고

이 칼을 잡은 난 세상의 지배자

힘의 논리 남자만의 법칙들

아주 웃기시네 Blurr Blurr Blurr Blurr

(Do you need money? I pay you)

돈에 눈이 멀어 자존심을 사는 남자

그대 이젠 맞이해라 Dooms and a Dooms

자 이제 보아 얘길 담아 듣자

새 시대 Story Girls on Top

All men [say/think] the world’s truth is an absolute, unchangeable law

I [am] the world’s leader grabbing this knife

Strength’s logic is only men’s rule

Yeah, right Blurr Blurr Blurr Blurr

(Do you need money? I pay you)

Men that only have eyes for money buy pride

Now you greet/welcome Dooms and a Dooms

Well, now listen carefully to BoA’s story

New age, Story Girls on Top

(Source)

Spoken with the confidence of someone with 2 bilingual speakers helping him, but that was refreshingly easy!

First, in line 1 I wrote “say/think” because which one it is isn’t actually mentioned in the indirect speech (there’s nothing after “법칙이라고”). Then in line 3, “웃기시네” is slang for “Yeah, right” (with or without the “아주”), and finally in line 5 “눈이 멀어” literally means “eyes far”, but combined with “[something]에” then it means “only have eyes for [something]“.

And now we’re in the home straight:

(Source)

이 세상의 반 그건 여자들이 만들거야

(Go baby Girl Rise up Throw your hands up Do you like that)

당당하게 난 멀리 앞을 향해 걸어갈래

(Go baby Go baby)

Women will make half of this world

(Go baby Girl Rise up Throw your hands up Do you like that)

I will walk further forward confidently

(Go baby Go baby)

(Source)

Again I got a little distracted by the first line, originally thinking it was an allusion to Mao-Zedong’s quote that “women hold up half the sky”, but apart from that then there’s not much of note language-wise there. And with just the chorus after that, then now it’s time to ponder the original question of whether BoA is “talking about the myriad conflicting expectations a modern girl must fulfill, [maybe even] bemoaning the constant pressure to embody male views of sexiness”, or if the song is merely “a girl power-lite anthem conceived by greedy business men”?

What do you think?

The cynic in me says the latter, as it’s just too incoherent to justify the former, no matter how much I’d like to. But some things may well be be lost in translation, and as this is in fact the very first song of BoA’s I’ve ever really listened to – let alone translated – then I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt. Indeed, although frankly I don’t particularly like it, it’s definitely piqued my interest in both the development of her image over the last 10 years, especially in her American debut with Eat You Up in 2008 (covered extensively in “Playing the Race and Sexuality Cards in the Transnational Pop Game: Korean Music Videos for the US Market” by Eun-Young Jung in Journal of Popular Music Studies Volume 22, Issue 2, pages 219–236, June 2010; email me for a copy), and also in how female singers and girl groups use sexuality to rebrand themselves (and for more on that, see “‘What’s Your Definition of Dirty, Baby?’: Sex in Music Video” by Andsager, J.  & Roe, K. in Sexuality and Culture, 2003, Vol 7; PART 3, pages 79-97; again, email me for a copy).

So, needless to say, I’ll be covering some more BoA songs this summer!^^

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It’s a strange feeling, being disappointed by the release of a 2NE1 music video.

Perhaps the closest analogy would be a few weeks after you first start flatting, when the excitement of non-stop partying wears off. Suddenly, you realize that it’s up to you to do the housework, take care of yourself, and somehow pay the bills. Maybe even – heaven forbid – go to bed at 10 like your parents did.

Likewise, Areia’s trance remixes of Follow Me (날 따라 해봐요) and especially Can’t Nobody are how I personally came to love 2NE1, and they’re such epics that I couldn’t help but be taken along for the ride. But, once the magic had worn off a little, then I had to admit that their music videos made little sense really, placing the onus on YG Entertainment to produce something more original and coherent this time.

And in the same style as the above image, the teasers did make me hopeful, especially given the constant delays to its release. Like Ashley at Seoulbeats said:

Is it too much to hope for an entirely animated MV with with the girls clearing out a warehouse, Tomb Raider style? They’ve got guns!

But instead we got a veritable smorgasbord of images and props again:

About which Noelle of the (awesome) Always Rational K-Pop Podcast said:

Let’s see… CL the boxer (or wrestler, take your pick) and the mental patient in a straightjacket and later on with a kitten that looks suspiciously like one of my kittens; Bom in skintight leather and studs rocking the dominatrix look with a poodle; Dara in a sports car and later with a hat with two ice creams in metal; Minzi in armor (which reminds me of Joan of Arc) who shows off her nifty dance moves… and all the girls with guns shooting glass. Nice!

What can I say? Well, nothing much but yeah, the world is theirs to conquer.

To which I’d add the - yet again – outrageous expense of their outfits, which surely undermines their maverick and/or bad-girl image?

Much as I’d like to deconstruct Bom’s BDSM side then, or ponder the symbolism of CL stroking her pussy, the incoherence of the video defies such efforts, so I’ll wisely just concentrate on the lyrics here. But don’t get me wrong: disappointment at missed opportunities aside, the video is still very addictive(!), and I love the song itself so much that it’s no less than my second ever MP3 purchase! (600won/US$0.55 from Naver, if you’re curious)

Update – My First Love Story puts my love-hate relationship with the video very well:

“I Am The Best” is the title of the new 2NE1 single. Fitting, as 2NE1 may in fact be the best girl group in the world at this very moment. And this is taking into account that the above video is rather typical 2NE1. It’s flashy, sleek, and professional, but it’s not like we haven’t seen this type of look-book video from them time and again. Thankfully, a typical 2NE1 video is still worlds better than an amazing video by approximately 99% of other girl groups in the game right now.

Update 2 – And Subi at Seoulbeats discusses the question of if this music video means that 2NE1 is really as original and unique as they seem.

(Source, all screenshots)

내가 제일 잘 나가 (x4)

Bam Ratatata Tatatatata (x4)

Oh my god

누가 봐도 내가 좀 죽여주잖아

둘째가라면 이 몸이 서럽잖아

넌 뒤를 따라오지만 난 앞만 보고 질주해

네가 앉은 테이블 위를 뛰어다녀 I don’t care

건드리면 감당 못해 I’m hot hot hot hot fire

뒤집어지기 전에 제발 누가 날 좀 말려

I am the best (x4)

Bam Ratatata Tatatatata (x4)

Oh my god

Whoever sees me thinks I’m a little killing hot

To be second to someone would be such a pity

You follow behind me, but I look ahead and race forward

I jump around on the table you sit at, I don’t care

If you touch me you won’t be able to bear it

Someone stop me before I go crazy

I’m surprised to learn that this is actually only the second 2NE1 song I’ve translated on the blog, and so will try to speed up the other 2 or 3 almost-completed ones I have floating around on my hard drive somewhere. Until then, please take my word for it that the brevity of their lyrics tends to belie their vagueness and contradictions, and in particular that subjects and objects are so often omitted in this song that – lest they make the translation unreadable – I decided to forgo all the extra square brackets to indicate my guesses (but I think I’ve got most of them right!).

That caveat aside, in line 4 “killing hot” is my wife’s literal translation, but which I’m sure you can make more natural-sounding in English (“looks to die for”? “looks that kill”?). Likewise, I thought the “a little” (좀) detracted from, maybe even flatly contradicted the point that she was very attractive, but as it’s in the original Korean then there you have it.

Fortunately the rest is just a matter of getting the dictionary out, as is the next verse, so I’ll pass it on without comment. But as always, please feel free to ask any questions about anything I don’t cover (and I’ll add my explanations in the corresponding sections of the post).

옷장을 열어 가장 상큼한 옷을 걸치고

거울에 비친 내 얼굴을 꼼꼼히 살피고

지금은 여덟 시 약속시간은 여덟 시 반

도도한 걸음으로 나선 이 밤

내가 제일 잘 나가 (x4)

I open my wardrobe and throw on my sweetest clothes, then

meticulously inspect my face shining in the mirror

Now it’s 8, my appointment is at half past

I leave this night with a proud, arrogant step

I am the best (x4)

내가 봐도 내가 좀 끝내주잖아

네가 나라도 이 몸이 부럽잖아

남자들은 날 돌아보고 여자들은 따라해

내가 앉은 이 자리를 매일 넘봐 피곤해

선수인척 폼만 잡는 어리버리한 Playa

넌 바람 빠진 타이어처럼 보기 좋게 차여

어떤 비교도 난 거부해 이건 겸손한 얘기

가치를 논하자면 나는 Billion dollar baby

뭘 쫌 아는 사람들은 다 알아서 알아봐

아무나 잡고 물어봐 누가 제일 잘 나가?

내가 제일 잘 나가 (x4)

Whoever sees me thinks my look is the end

Even if you were me, you would be envious of my body

Men turn their heads and look at me, women follow me

I am tired of people trying to take my place [as number one] everyday

A stupid, naive playa who only poses like one

Like a tire that’s had it’s air let out, you look well rejected

I don’t accept some comparison, this is my modest story

If you planned to guess my worth, then I’m a billion dollar baby

People who know about stuff, recognize all this by themselves

Grab anyone and ask: who is the best?

Lulled into a false sense of security by the previous verses, this one frankly had me wanting to rip my hair out. Fortunately, I don’t actually have any, but you get the idea!

• In line 1, as you can probably guess “my look is the end” is a literal translation, but note that it means exactly the same thing as “I’m a little killing hot” in the corresponding line in Verse 1.
• If you’re confused by line 2, because you think that if you were one of the 2NE1 members then surely you wouldn’t be jealous of their body because it was now yours, then you’re not alone. So please don’t shoot the messenger!
• In line 3, don’t misread the “돌아보다” like I originally did: it’s not “돌보다”, which means “to look after”.
• Line 4 is literally “athlete-pretend-form/pose[only]-grab[that]-stupid/naive-playa”…after reading which I seriously began to despair. But my wife telling me that “선수” (athlete) also means “playa” in many contexts helped, and our final “a stupid, naive playa who only poses like one” does make some sense: the guy referred to is a poser rather than a genuine playa perhaps?
• Line 7 would be better translated to “Nobody compares to me” in English, but what’s up there is closer to the original Korean. No, I don’t think that that’s a “modest story” either.
• Line 9 I couldn’t make any head or tail of, and so the translation is entirely my wife’s. I throw myself on the mercy of the court!

In compensation for the difficulty I had with all that though, fortunately the song is already almost over:

누가? 네가 나보다 더 잘 나가?

No no no no!

Na na na na! (x4)

Bam Ratatata Tatatatata (x4)

Oh my god

Who? You are better than me?

No no no no!

Na na na na! (x4)

Bam Ratatata Tatatatata (x4)

Oh my god

And on that note, apologies for the slight delay with this post. But for my severest critics demanding to get involved however, then it would have been up several hours ago:

(Source, all screenshots)

HyunA’s definitely bringing more awareness to K-Pop on a global level, and this MV definitely highlights all the things we love about K-pop. (Allkpop)

With enough T&A to fill an American Apparel catalogue, I couldn’t agree more. And I’m not the only one whose honest impression is that the combination of red high heels, ripped jean shorts, and a singlet looks “kinda pornstar-ish” either. Add her notorious “sex face” above too, then I have to admit it’s difficult for me to judge this particular MV without also being influenced by my feelings about pornography.

Specifically, just how unsexy many women actually feel when doing MVs and photoshoots like this:

When you get yourself into the really contortionist position that you’ve got to hold up and your back hurts and you’ve got to suck in your stomach, you’ve got to stick your hips out, you’ve got to arch your back and you’ve got to stick your butt out all at the same time and suck in and hold your breath, you don’t feel sexy. You feel pain. And you feel like you want to kill [the photographer]. (Alex Arden, former Penthouse “Pet of the Month”; quoted in Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture, p. 42.)

Lest that be projecting too much into a split-second expression of HyunA’s however (although I too would still be “surprised [if] she didn’t sprain her butt” while filming), others have also noticed the lack of genuine sexiness in much of the MV:

It seems like the choreographer or director doesn’t trust her to be capable of being sexy without sexy moves.

A reply:

You’re right. It seems like she was told to move that way, as opposed to her just free styling with the music.

And another commenter later (my emphasis):

As for the sexiness of the video, girl is trying to hard and it is awkward. I mean Hyunah is a sexy pretty girl and doesn’t have to do much to be sexy, and is also quite the dancer. But here its like she is trying to be sexy rather than just being sexy if that makes sense. The dance is nothing to write home about, and Hyunah can do a lot better than what the choreographers are giving her.

What’s more, I think I speak for many heterosexual men when I say that many of these robotic “sexy moves”, mandatory for young women in K-pop and the Korean media, actually don’t do it for us at all. Instead, they merely reduce:

…a concept as complicated, multilayered, and diverse as [female sexuality]…to expression through a single channel…one involving lacy lingerie, skintight clothing, and the rest of what Ariel Levy calls “the caricature of female hotness”…[this] has to be seen as construction or a fabrication, in which the complexities of the subject are flattened into a single, authoritative dimension, and in which all other possibilities are erased. (Meenakshi Durham, The Lolita Effect, p. 71)

(Not that there isn’t still much for heterosexual men — and lesbians — to like in the MV of course. These camera angles, for instance, are similar to those repeatedly used in Girls’ Generation’s Genie, not by coincidence still one of the most {soft} pornographic Korean MVs out there)

But the K-pop memes in, and surrounding, the MV don’t stop there. For despite everything, there’s been a lot of criticism of its sexual nature, in which Angry KPop Fan sees a big double-standard:

…it’s true that we’re seeing quite a few ‘sexy’ images in kpop nowadays, including Hyuna, and a lot of the reactions I’ve come across were quite negative. A very common thing I’ve heard around was that though “Bubble Pop” is a ‘cute song’, the dance (and Hyuna) was ‘too sexy’. This brings me back to when I first shared my opinion about Rania and their debut. Allow me to quote some awesome points a couple of readers brought up during the Rania discussion, which nicely sum up the core of my perspective:

…the double standard that when female artists wear “provocative” clothes they’re “sluts” but when male artists rip off their shirt it’s, “WAAAAAH!!!!”

Why should feeling sexy be a taboo?

…there doesn’t have to be any negative connotations attached if society doesn’t force one upon it.

I believe there’s nothing wrong with ‘sexual content’. The problem lies in how we, the audience, has perceived it over the years. Why is it that we get so, I guess, ‘turned off’ when we see concepts that are ‘too sexy’, ESPECIALLY when it involves women? You can already start seeing how this can come off as sexist and misogynistic. This is where I play often-played double-standard card: do we criticize just as much when our male stars rip their shirts off and thrust against the stage’s floor? It’s something to think about.

After all that, it may come as some surprise that I actually quite like HyunA, and agree with many offline and online friends that she looks well on her way to becoming the next Lee Hyori.

But still, typical gushing enthusiasm from Allkpop aside, let’s not have any illusions as to why the MV has gained so many hits so quickly. Nor, in light of what being a such an idol actually entails, should we take on face value narratives of female sexual empowerment in Kpop that rely on little more evidence than women wearing a lot of tight, revealing clothes. Yet that seems to be the default reaction to any criticism of the MV.

How about the lyrics though? As you’d expect from what is set to be the breezy summer song of 2011, there’s only a grand total of two verses and a chorus, but at first glance there is actually a bit of grrrl power-lite to them. It’s such a pity then, that while she may singing about, say, asserting her independence and not changing to something her boyfriend would prefer, at the same time in the MV she’ll be pouting and being a girly-girl. Indeed, does that ultimately only serve to frame the former in terms of the latter? Hmmm…

Bubble Pop! Bubble Pop!

처음부터 끝까지 날 바꾸려 하지 마

아니면 차라리 다른 사람 만나 (우 우우우우 너)

투덜대지 마! (우 우우우우 너)

밤 늦게 나가서 놀면 좀 어때

어쩌다 전화 안 받으면 어때 (우 우우우우 hey)

왜 자꾸 그래 너! 나를 못 믿니

Bubble Pop! Bubble Pop!

From our beginning to our end, don’t plan on changing me

If not, I’d rather you met someone else (Oooh…ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh you)

Don’t grumble or complain! (Oooh…ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh you)

What’s wrong with going out late to hang out?

What’s wrong with not answering my phone sometimes? (Oooh…ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh hey)

Why are you often like that? You don’t trust me

For a change, I’ve decided against a literal translation. By all means, please ask me to explain anything in today’s translation that you don’t understand, but in the meantime one small thing of note is that she never actually says “What’s wrong with…?” in lines 4 and 5, but literally “How about…?”. Also, she actually says “What’s wrong with going out late to play?” in line 4, but, as I regularly explain to my students (usually after silently laughing to their “I played a lot with my boyfriend last night”), the English word is not really used by adults.

Next, there’s the chorus:

(Woo boy!) 너에게 날 맞추진 마

(Hey boy!) 나에게 더 바라진 마

(My boy!) 거품처럼 커진 맘을

Bubble Bubble Bubble Pop! Bubble Bubble Pop! Pop!

(Woo boy!) 있는 그대로 생각해 봐

(Hey boy!) 보이는 대로 날 바라봐 줘

거품처럼 커진 맘을

Bubble Bubble Bubble Pop! Bubble Bubble Pop! Pop!

(Woo boy!) Don’t try to make me more like you

(Hey boy!) Don’t expect more from me

(My boy!) My heart, which has become big like a bubble

Bubble Bubble Bubble Pop! Bubble Bubble Pop! Pop!

(Woo boy!) Try to think of me like this

(Hey boy!) Please look at me the way I really look

My heart, which has become big like a bubble

Bubble Bubble Bubble Pop! Bubble Bubble Pop! Pop!

In lines 1 and 2, the definitions for “맞추다” and “바라다” – “bring into line with” and “expect, hope for” respectively – were a surprise to me at first, but that’s because I was confusing them with the completely different “멈추다” and “바라보다”. Much more difficult to resolve though, was the repeated “거품처럼 커진 맘을”. Literally, it’s “bubble-like-big-changed-heart”, but the “을” next to the heart (“마음”, shortened to “맘”) makes it the object and not the subject, which would be indicated by “이” or “은”. So what happens to this heart made bigger? That seems to be left unresolved, although I’m assuming that it’s popped, as indicated in the next (English) sentences.

That makes no sense in terms of the narrative of the song though (to the extent that there is one), so I’d appreciate any alternative explanations!

말은 좀 예쁘게 해 웃을 땐 얌전하게

연락은 좀 자주해 Huh! Huh! 너나 잘해 Hey Hey Hey Hey

Bubble Bubble Pop! Pop! (우 우우우우)

웃다가 가끔 우울하면 어때

좋다가 갑자기 싫어짐 어때 (우 우우우우)

왜 자꾸 그래 너! 나를 모르니

Please speak nicely, and laugh gently and modestly

Call me often Huh! Huh! You’re the one that should do better

Bubble Bubble Pop! Pop! (Ooh…ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh)

What’s wrong with sometimes feeling depressed or crying after laughing?

What’s wrong with hating everything after feeling good? (Ooh…ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh)

Why are you so often like this? Don’t you know me?

In line 2, “너나 잘해” (“You’re the one that should do better”) is a slang expression I learnt from my wife. HyunA asking her boyfriend to call her more often just before that though, seems a little contradictory, as she’s already admitted that she’s not going to be answering sometimes (and that he shouldn’t complain about that).

And hell, combine that with the pouting, the childishness, the strategic jiggling and strutting of one’s physical assets…then as I type this, I’m suddenly left with the feeling that the whole combined song and MV is an ode to “aegyo” (애교) and especially “princess disease” (공주병). No, not the narcissism that comes with the latter, but more the whining and bratty behavior (and aegyo) to get one’s way with one’s boyfriend.

And with just two more rounds of the chorus to go (albeit with a particularly robotic dance break in between), then let me leave you on that polemical note!

Update 1 - In response to the Korea Broadcasting and Communications Review Committee deeming HyunA’s choreography and outfits for “Bubble Pop” to be ‘too sexually suggestive’ for public broadcast (both in the music video and stage performances), Cube entertainment has abruptly ended all promotions for the song.

Update 2 - Essential extra reading: “HyunA vs Hyun-ah: Deconstructing Korea’s Sexy Idol” at Mixtapes and Liner Notes.

Unlike From Noona With Love, the more K-pop idols I listen to, the more I find that can’t actually sing(!). But still, we can definitely agree on the abilities of Lim Jeong-hee (임정희), and I’m really glad I found out about her via Noona’s post.

As the lyrics reveal, I’m a Golden Lady is a short but sweet grrrl power piece, about a woman splitting up with her boyfriend and kicking him out of  her apartment. Yet while the music video does follow this narrative at first, then I think undermines it by singer G.NA (지나) all too readily accepting comedian Park Hwi-soon (박휘순) back whenever he brings her gifts later, even if she does literally beat him up immediately afterwards for trying to kiss her, hug her, or stroke her hair. Indeed, as that affection would surely be natural for a reconciled couple that used to share a bed, then, however comic, G.NA appears not so much empowered as a bit of a user.

But with such a beautiful voice, especially those nasal twangs in the chorus (see about 1:14 for instance), then I’ll more than forgive Jeong-hee for the MV. Liking her voice so much though, then you’d think I would have realized sooner that it’s not actually her that does the rap section from 2:29 to 2:49, but rather another (much more famous) Korean singer. See if you guess who, before all is revealed down the page…

Update - Also check out this version with an orchestra, to hear Jeong-hee’s voice away from the recording studio:

너 없이 어떻게 살아가냐고 바보 같은 질문 말아

나는 알아 너 같은 남자는 널려 있단걸

너 같은 남자가 아니더라도 전화 한 통에 달려올

그런 남자 나만 기다리는 남자는 많아

벌써 그 사람의 자동차 소리가 들려

이젠 내 집에서 좀 나가주겠니

아예 없던것처럼

Stop asking stupid questions, like how can I live without you

I know so many men like you

No matter how much they’d be like you, with just one phone call I’d have so many men chasing after me, only waiting for me

I can already hear the sound of his [their?] car

Now, why don’t you leave my home?

Take everything, as if you were never here

(Sources, all remaining screenshots: 1, 2)

Just focusing on those few things which I personally had difficulty with, although I’d be quite happy to explain anything more if anyone requests (and grateful to readers for pointing out any mistakes), the first is the “~날려 있다” in line 2.  With no relationship with the numerous meanings of the verb “날리다”, and not being in any grammar books of mine, I would never have guessed that it meant “lots of [something]” without the help of my wife.

Other than that, the only other thing I briefly struggled with was the verb ending “~겠니” in line 6, which means “aren’t you going to [verb] for me?”. I’d forgotten that – ahem – I’d already covered that in my translation of After School’s Ah! last June.

Next, it’s the chorus:

Hey I’m a golden lady 구차하게 왜 이래

내 내 내 내가 말로 해야만 알겠니

Hey I’m a golden lady 불쌍한 My baby

빼 빼 빼 이젠 발을 빼줘야 할 때야

야~ 이 집도 내가 산 거야 이 차도 내가 산거야

난 이런 여자 야~ 날 위해 살아온거야 그래서 소중한거야

Hey I’m a golden lady, why are you begging like this?

I, I, I…can you only understand if I have to say it?

Hey, I’m a golden lady, my poor, pitiful baby

Go, go, go…Hey, it’s time for you to step out for me

I bought this house too, and this car

Hey, I’m that kind of woman, I have been living for myself, so they’re valuable to me

In lines 1 and 3, both “구차하다” and “불쌍하다” translate as “poor, pitiful, wretched, humiliating” (and so on) according to my dictionary, but my wife says that it’s only the former that more means humiliating and pathetic, and the latter used for someone or thing you should feel sorry for.

열쇠는 놓고가 항상 놔두던 현관 입구 바구니에

안보이게 괜히 숨겨 갈 생각 하지 말고

니 옷은 챙겨줘 남기지 말고 내가 선물한 옷들도

그냥 줄게 남김 없이 싹 다 가지고 가줘

걸리적 거리니까 옆으로 비켜주겠니

이젠 현관에서 퇴장해 주겠니

아예 없던것처럼

Put your keys in the basket in the porch that you always put keys in

Don’t even think about hiding them

Take your clothes, even the ones I bought for you

I don’t want anything to remain, just take everything

You’re in the way, move!

Now, leave from the porch

As if you were never here

In line 5, “걸리적 거리다” is sort of slang for “you’re in way”, again courtesy of my wife.

Next, there’s a short version of the chorus, then the rap section. If you’re reading as you listen, scroll down very slowly if you want to guess who’s singing it before reaching the end:

Hey I’m a golden lady 구차하게 왜 이래

내 내 내 내가 말로 해야만 알겠니

Hey I’m a golden lady 불쌍한 My baby

빼 빼 빼 이젠 발을 빼줘야 할 때야

Hey I’m a golden lady, why are you begging like this?

I, I, I…can you only understand if I have to say it?

Hey, I’m a golden lady, my poor, pitiful baby

Go, go, go…Hey, it’s time for you to step out for me

불쌍한척 애교 좀 떨지마

지루한 너의 유먼 이젠 내겐 철 지난

옷과 같애 몇번을 또 말해야만

알아 듣고 내 앞에서 꺼지겠어? 이젠 안돼

나지막히 얘기할 때 나를 떠나줘

마지막이 아름답게 말을 말아 더

지긋지긋한 너의 어리광

차비라도 달라고 나 참 어이가 없어 Good bye

Don’t do that pretending-to-be-poor aegyo

Your tedious humor is now like last season’s clothes

Do I have to tell you time and time again?

Figure it out…will you get the hell away from in front of me? No more!

Now I’m telling you in a serious voice to leave me

To not ruin this end, say no more

I’m tired of your childishness

You’re even asking for a bus fare? I’ve had it with you! Goodbye!

(Source)

With apologies to Korean learners, I didn’t have any troubles at all with that section, although I’m sure I’ll come to rue those words as soon as better speakers than I get their teeth stuck into it!

As for the source of the rap, if you’d guessed HyunA (현아) of 4Minute (포미닛) then I’m impressed, as I had no idea until halfway through writing this post, when I stumbled across it by accident on some Kpop site…then belatedly noticed it mentioned in the title of the YouTube video I was originally using.

After that, it’s the full version of the chorus again, and already that’s the entire song. Like I said, short and sweet:

Hey I’m a golden lady 구차하게 왜 이래

내 내 내 내가 말로 해야만 알겠니

Hey I’m a golden lady 불쌍한 My baby

빼 빼 빼 이젠 발을 빼줘야 할 때야

야~ 이 집도 내가 산 거야 이 차도 내가 산거야

난 이런 여자 야~ 날 위해 살아온거야 그래서 소중한거야

Hey I’m a golden lady, why are you begging like this?

I, I, I…can you only understand if I have to say it?

Hey, I’m a golden lady, my poor, pitiful baby

Go, go, go…Hey, it’s time for you to step out for me

I bought this house too, and this car

Hey, I’m that kind of woman, I have been living for myself, so they’re valuable to me

Originally, I aimed to do much more background research on Jeong-hee before posting here (one of many resolutions made over my short blogging break), in her case checking out her other music videos to see if any more of her music features similar grrrl power themes. But as just this one example illustrates, music videos can often give a very misleading impression of a song’s lyrics, so unfortunately that project is going to require many more time-consuming translations,  rather than a lazy afternoon spent in front of Youtube. Until those are completed then, I’ll happily defer to readers’ greater knowledge of her (and/or recommendations on which of her other songs to start with), and will begin posting readers’ requests for other songs that I’ve been working on. Rather than putting some readers off in advance by choosing next week’s one myself though, please let me know which of those you’d like instead!^^

Update, 5pm Friday – Unfortunately, PollDaddy doesn’t give you a 5-day option for closing your poll (the closest is a week), but now is when I really need to start working on your selection for it to be ready for Monday. Thanks for you votes then, and Syndrome by Chocolat it is!

(For more Korean song translations, please see here)

(Source)

Way back when the internet was just for emails, getting on a plane was pretty much the only way to immerse yourself in another country’s pop-culture. But there were instant insights to be gained if you did.

Take the first Korean music videos I saw. Certainly, they were confusing at first: the hairstyles and clothing were downright bizarre, and I couldn’t understand a word of the language. But seeing the same dance moves, facial expressions, and hand gestures on Korean singers as those back home? I suddenly gained a profound sense of how manufactured pop music was in both countries, which I’d never been able to get from my hapless media studies lecturer.

And that was in May 2000. Fast forward to 2011, and it’s great having 24/7 access to K-pop, wherever you are in the world. But what would it be like encountering the K-pop assembly-line for the first time today?

(Source, all Syndrome screenshots)

Enter Chocolat’s (쇼콜라) music video for Syndrome (신드롬), offering similar quick insights into Korean girl-groups specifically, in this case through seeing girls doing things you normally only see women do. In particular, cutesy aegyo is bad enough coming from a 21 year-old singer, but simply surreal when you see it done by a 14 year-old.

Yes, surreal, not merely awkward and inexperienced: essentially, you’re watching a child pretending to be an adult pretending to be a child.

Likewise, de rigueur sexy wistful stares at the viewer, hinting at hidden pain and heartbreak, while walking aimlessly in moodily-lit rooms? Receiving one from someone not yet old enough to date, only seems to highlight the pretentiousness of the device all the more. So much so, that I’m not sure I won’t be able to simply laugh at the next one I see now, unless it’s coming from a genuinely worldly-wise diva like, say, Uhm Jung-hwa (엄정화).

Oops: Juliane (줄리앤) above, is actually 18, albeit – if you’ll indulge someone twice her age – still far too young to pull the look off. But that’s not her fault, and I’m sure her and other members will improve with experience. Call it an occupational hazard of teenage groups: No More Perfume on You (향수뿌리지마) by Teen Top (틴탑), for instance, relies on a similar suspension of disbelief, as we’re supposed to pretend that all the boys are playas in a nightclub, despite none being old enough to even get in one:

Rather than dwelling on how teenage girls dancing in tight clothes made me think of teenage boys though, let’s wisely turn to the issue of Chocolat’s marketing instead. First, some quick context.

These days, with notorious levels of illegal downloading ensuring that girl-groups’ (and boy-bands’) management agencies overwhelmingly rely on endorsement deals rather than music sales for profit, then the most important thing is to get noticed. However, this is increasingly difficult, as 27 girl-groups have already debuted just this year.

One inevitable development then, is the increasing sexualization of K-pop, as I discuss in the Korea Herald here. Another, much more recent one, is explicitly using what’s known in advertising as a “unique selling point” (USP), such as the Swing Girls (스윙걸즈) highlighting the fact that all members have D-cup breasts, or the Piggy Dolls (피기돌스) that they are (or rather were) much heavier than most other female stars.

(Update – Megan at Seoulbeats explores this more in her post about the very similar – and increasingly tiresome – use of “concepts”)

As for Chocolat, their own USP is that 3 members are biracial, with Korean mothers and US Caucasian fathers. Not the first Korean group with biracial or foreign members by any means, but certainly the first to emphasize it so (although as an aside, it would be interesting to see how SM Entertainment handled the issue of Kim Isak’s {김이삭} mixed race back in 2002).

(Source)

Will this succeed? Angry K-pop Fan, ellieAisa (in the video below), Gord Sellar, and Ashley of Seoulbeats are pessimistic. In particular, let me quote Gord at some length:

Whereas the media hypersexualization of children is pretty much accepted — if not admitted — in Korean society, and the media hypersexualization of white women is all but de rigeur now, I think the idea that the media sexualization of biracially white/Korean children might not turn out to be as profitable an enterprise in Korea.

The band seems to be getting a pretty negative reception online, and it’s not hard to see why: the particular anxieties regarding race in Korea that the group’s promoters are trying to exploit — ambiguities of race, and the permissible exoticism of the non-Korean female — take on a life of their own when there is not a Korean male in the picture to “own” her (and, likewise, to “pwn” her).

Put that mixed race woman in a group of Korean women, without a man in the mix, and I think you might find what I’ve seen in reality: she gets ostracized, because she is the one who’s enviably different. And then, if you take a few of them and put them together, make them dominate a group, and let media out where they could remotely be understood (or misunderstood, or willfully misunderstood even) as looking down on Korean girls, and…

Well, I don’t know what will happen. But I expect a lot of negative press, a lot of anti-fans. Korean girls are not going to like this very much. What remains to be seen is whether the appeal to middle-aged men is going to be enough to outweigh that narrowing of audience.

(Update – Related, also see Hello Korea!’s discussion of SuperStarK’s judges recently hesitating to approve a Caucasian entrant, as they anticipated “that the Korean people would be reluctant to let him win over a Korean”)

With the benefit of an extra month’s hindsight though, I’m going to wager that they will actually become popular, for several reasons.

First, because they have not just one USP but two: their race and their youth. Two of the three biracial members, Tia (티아) and Melanie (멜라니), are only 14 (the other biracial member is 18 year-old Juliane, mentioned earlier). From the perspective of management agency Paramount Music, this makes great sense both in the long-term and the short term.

In the long-term, because the younger a girl-group member becomes popular, the greater the range of consumers she can appeal to: ergo, both teens and young children and the uncle/ajoshhi fans. And she will have a much longer shelf-life so to speak.

This is the heart of “The Lolita Effect”, and why performers – especially female performers – are becoming younger worldwide, not just in Korea.

In the short term, while Girl Story (걸스토리) and GP Basic (지피 베이직) have even younger members, both groups seem to have quickly dropped off the radar, leaving – correct me if I’m wrong – Chocolat with the youngest girls currently active in K-pop. This presents a great opportunity for Paramount Music to gain notoriety for them by pushing the Korean public’s toleration of the hypersexualization of Tia and Melanie to the limit.

(Source)

Call me projecting my own narratives onto K-pop, but, sure enough, Tia at least has already been in a romantic couple photoshoot with 27 year-old actor Ji Hyun-woo (지현우), even before Chocolat officially debuted. You could argue that that was simply one small part of their overall marketing strategy rather than presaging a focus on sexualization per se, but my money’s still on them following the footsteps of So-hee (안소희) of the Wondergirls (원더걸스); Sulli (최설리) of f(x) (에프엑스; see here also); HyunA (김현아) of 4Minute (포미닛); arguably Suzy (배수지) of Miss A (미쓰에이); just about all of Girls’ Generation; and so on. As like Gord Sellar has said elsewhere, it’s not sex itself that sells, but more sexuality and sexual relationships only just on the fringe of public acceptance:

…we westerners also have a lot of weirdness in our entertainment media floating around that grey area of the age of consent. We’re profoundly uncomfortable with — and at the same time fascinated by — the period where sexuality begins to form in the mind of people, and the moment at which that sexuality becomes permissible. Straight-laced objectionability is, in fact, the greatest determinant in whether you’ll see a sex scene between two characters in a film. This is why we so rarely see plain, slightly overweight forty-year-olds having marital sex in a film. Doubtless, there must be some plain-looking middle-aged married couples out there who have passionate, enviable sex lives, but you’ll never see that in more than a few films, because it’s the most permissible sex on the planet. It’s when sex becomes imaginably objectionable — transgressive — that it becomes worthy of depiction…

Second, USPs aside, another thing in Chocolat’s favor is how they’re already behaving like better established girl-groups, already dieting and claiming that they haven’t had any cosmetic surgery(!). But more seriously, it also didn’t take long for Tia at least to secure a cosmetics endorsement deal, according to Paramount Music precisely because of her exoticism (albeit hardly an objective source).

Next, you might reasonably expect me to also present the photoshoot with Ji Hyun-woo as an example of a Korean male “owning her”, but honestly I’m not sure what Gord is driving at there, and invite him to elaborate either in the comments or on his own blog. I will grant though, that while it’s difficult to generalize, I do get the impression that the more Caucasian women you see in Korean-produced ads, the more they’re depicted with a Korean romantic male interest, as is also the case for music videos (see two examples below). Not that there’s anything wrong with that of course (although it would be nice if the opposite were also true), and I’d be grateful if any readers could fill me in on how they fare in dramas and movies.

Also, it’s certainly true that, sometimes, Korean girl-groups’ music videos have a completely unnecessary, often distracting and confusing male presence. To my mind, the most notorious example would be Because of You (너 때문에) by After School (애프터스쿨; discussed here), which inexplicably features a male in it despite clearly being about a lesbian relationship between two of the members (although technically the lyrics leave the gender{s} open):

Finally, it’s only indirectly related, but it’s one of the first things I thought of when I read Gord’s take on Chocolat (so what the hell): while the “policing” of women in K-pop is constantly in flux, with many backward steps, generally I’d say its slowly but surely liberalizing over time. In particular, whereas S.E.S (에스이에스) was forced to make Caucasian rather than Korean men the target of their wrath for their music video for U back in 2002, lest Korean men be offended (see here and here), now Korean men are fair game, with Miss A’s music videos in particular coming to mind.

Moreover, the debut of a girl group focused on its biracial members provides a great opportunity to do away with convention.

It’s such a pity then, that the music video for Syndrome has such a cookie-cutter feel about it instead, although that is of course what you’d expect from something so representative of the genre. For an analysis, see Quynh’s breakdown of it at Seoulbeats, while I’ll finally – belatedly – provide a translation of the lyrics for the remainder of this post:

Oh yeah~

그 얼굴 닳아질라 널 자꾸 보게 돼 baby baby

너 귀가 따가울라 여기저기서 니 얘기뿐야

Woo~그 hair, fashion 모든 게 it style 닮고 싶은 hot style

Boo 떠오른 new icon uh huh

Oh yeah~

Your face is fading, but I want to see it often

Your ears are burning, everyone is talking about only you

Woo~ that hair, fashion everything it style, a hot style I want to resemble

Boo a rising icon uh huh

Mercifully after a such a long discussion, Syndrome is probably the shortest, most repetitive song I’ve ever translated. Unfortunately though, just like the music video lacks any story, so too do the lyrics too seem disjointed and thrown together, chosen more for their sound than their meaning. Add an excessive amount of English nonsense, even by K-pop standards, then I’m going to forgo discussing my translation on this occasion, although I’d be quite happy to in the comments if people have alternative translations and/or think I’ve made a mistake.

Next, there’s the chorus:

빠 빠 빠 빠 빠져 버린 걸 헤 헤 헤 헤 헤어날 수 없게

너땜에 앓고 있잖아 모두 다 la la la la like me

폐 폐 폐 폐 폐인이 된걸 너 너 너 너에게 중독돼

이순간 Shake me up Fill me up Heal me again

I’ve so fa- fa- fa- fa- fallen for you, I can’t escape

I’m suffering because of you, everything la la la la like me

You’ve cr- cr- cr- cr- crippled me, I’m addicted to you you you

This moment, shake me up, fill me up, heal me again

널 새겨 놓은 my eye eye eye eye 멋진 그 목소리 in my headset

어떡해 미쳤나봐 낮이나 밤이나 니 생각뿐야

Woo 그 ment, motion 모든 게 issue 폭풍눈물 tissue

Boo 빛나는 new idol uh huh

You’re engraved into my eye eye eye eye, your cool voice in my headset

What am I supposed to do, I only think about you every day and night

Woo, that ment, motion everything issue, storm tears tissue

Boo, shiny new idol, uh huh

빠빠빠빠빠져버린걸헤헤헤헤헤어날수없게

너땜에앓고있잖아모두다 la la la la like me

폐폐폐폐폐인이된걸너너너너에게중독돼

이순간 Shake me up Fill me up Heal me again

I’ve so fa- fa- fa- fa- fallen for you, I can’t escape

I’m suffering because of you, everything la la la la like me

You’ve cr- cr- cr- cr- crippled me, I’m addicted to you you you

This moment, shake me up, fill me up, heal me again

내가 어쩌다 이렇게 됐나 몰라 몰라 몰라 몰라

내겐너무먼별같은걸

내맘을알아줘 baby 맘을알아줘 baby You never break break my heart

날잊지말아줘 baby 잊지말아줘 baby la la la la like me

내맘을알아줘 baby 맘을알아줘 baby You never break break my heart

이순간 Shake me up Fill me up Heal me again

How did I become like this, I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know

To me, you’re like an unreachable star

Please know my heart baby, please know my heart baby, you never break break my heart

Please don’t forget me baby, please don’t forget me baby, la la la la like me

Please know my heart baby, please know my heart baby, you never break break my heart

This moment, shake me up, fill me up, heal me again

빠 빠 빠 빠 빠져 버린 걸 헤 헤 헤 헤 헤어날 수 없게

너땜에 앓고 있잖아 모두 다 la la la la like me

폐 폐 폐 폐 폐인이 된걸 너 너 너 너에게 중독돼

이순간 Shake me up Fill me up Heal me again

Never break break my hearta

I’ve so fa- fa- fa- fa- fallen for you, I can’t escape

I’m suffering because of you, everything la la la la like me

You’ve cr- cr- cr- cr- crippled me, I’m addicted to you you you

This moment, shake me up, fill me up, heal me again

Never break break my hearta

Make sure you see ellieAsia‘s short video (“Chocolat Scares Me”) for her rendition of the way Tia says that last line – it’s hilarious.

And on that note, apologies for the long delay with this post: blame an editing job at work that took much longer than expected, and then a cold from the lack of sleep. Also, no vote for next week’s song this time sorry, as One More Chance (나 좀 봐줘) by Dana & Sunday (다나&선데이), sub-unit of  The Grace (천상지희 더 그레이스), came a very very close second to Syndrome when votes closed on Friday at 5pm (or were supposed to close sorry – PollDaddy doesn’t seem to be working very well):

The “Reading the Lolita Effect in Korea” series:

• Reading “The Lolita Effect” in South Korea: Part 1
• Reading the Lolita Effect in Korea, Part 2: The role of K-pop and the Korean media in sexual socialization and the formation of body image
• Reading the Lolita Effect in Korea, Part 3: Six Year-Old Does KARA’s “Butt Dance” (엉덩이 춤) on “Shabekuri 007″
• Reading The Lolita Effect in Korea, Part 4: A Wave of Middle School Girls Wearing Make-up…Is it all Girl Groups’ Fault?
• Syndrome (신드롬) by ChoColat (쇼콜라): Lyrics, Translation, and Explanation / Reading The Lolita Effect in Korea, Part 5

(Source, all screenshots)

아, 짱나! Why’d you always choose songs with such bloody strange lyrics?!!

While I’m very grateful to my long-suffering wife for her help, somebody had to redeem this song’s reputation among English speakers. For it definitely deserves praise for its empowering lyrics, especially when people may be put off from hearing the song at all through reviews like this, this, and this that don’t even consider them. Or translations like these that don’t give enough thought to resolving their ambiguity.

Yet who can blame those writers? With an official title of One More Chance (나 좀 봐줘), and lyrics that sometimes mention a guy, then it’s only natural to assume it’s basically about one more chance with that guy. In which case, SM Entertainment has done Dana & Sunday (다나 & 선데) a great disservice, for that English title doesn’t just dilute the song’s message, but positively subverts it.

If I’m going to argue that other people allowed their preconceptions to color their judgement of a song though, then first let me disclose my own, which I gained through readers’ emails like this one:

There seems to be 2 camps about the lyrics: It’s either stupid or the lyrics are quite ingenious. Is this a girl-anthem lite or is it a true empowerment song?

What I can only pick out is: “Amazon” “Adam & Eve” “Soju” “Bridget Jones” From the translations I have already read, there seems to be more metaphors than the usual k-pop songs.

And then from Jessica in the comments section to a post on underlying messages in girl-group songs:

…SM Ent just brought back one of their older K-pop groups, originally a 4 piece harmony group called The Grace as a duo.

I’m showing you this because the lyrics were written by SM Ent’s inhouse songwriter, Kenzie. Unlike her lyrics for Oh!’, though, the lyrics in this song seem pretty different and a bit strange compared to your average K-Pop single. I think they would be pretty interesting to dissect because at the moment I kind of feel like it could be a female-empowerment song, but the lyrics just don’t make any sense to me, even when translated! (Could be a bad translation? I don’t know..)

Then from Gomushin Girl’s reply:

It’s not perfect in the translation department (“give me one more chance, my strength’s coming out” is pretty loosely translated, ha!), but the lyrics are pretty explicitly meant to be empowering. They complain about the emphasis on being pretty and acting feminine. I thought the bit about how she didn’t like to drink soju because it made her face look big (for those of you not in Korea, having a “small face” is a mark of beauty) and she’d prefer the (ungentrified, rural, masculine) unfiltered rice wine – which comes in a bigger cup. The lyrics also reject certain standards of masculine beauty, saying that they’re fine with guys with big heads (in this case, it’s NOT figurative and saying he’s full of himself but literally that his head is big and therefore unattractive) – albeit partially because it makes her look smaller by comparison! So yeah, it’s pretty straight up critique of Korea’s beauty culture and cult of femininity.

That said, what’s really problematic for me is that the video images don’t do anything to reinforce the girl power message. I mean, it’s a pretty lame video – there’s absolutely nothing to it beyond having them dressed up and dancing – but it also plays right into the mainstream image of women in Kpop. You could put in totally different lyrics about how they’re waiting for their 오빠 to come and rescue them and it’d work fine.

And finally from Jessica’s response:

Indeed! It’s a shame. These are probably the only lyrics I’ve seen from a girl group outside of 2NE1 and (perhaps) 4Minute that are empowering, it’s just a shame that the music video is so conflicting. I think they should’ve atleast dressed them differently. I feel that this song would’ve been betetr suited to labelmate, f(x). I’d hardly say that the group is empowering, but you have unconventional (well, by typical Korean standards, I guess) beauties like Amber that could atleast give the lyrics *some* sort of meaning.

I’m more interested in the songwriters views over Dana and Sunday’s, though, who I’m guessing had no input with regards to the lyrics in this song. I have to wonder what Kenzie’s views really are; it seems she’s trying to raise the issues women have to deal with in Korean society, and yet she seems to have no problem writing songs such as Oh! for SNSD. If only I could have a discussion with this woman. haha

I’d still say it’s a step forward though, and it feels less like a contrived marketing ploy to me than say BoA’s ‘Girls On Top’, and I do commend Kenzie for not going down the typical lyrical route as seen in most ‘female empowerment’ pop songs and making some sort of statement, even if the words are lost on the poor video.

Only after reading those, I confess, did I really investigate who Dana and Sunday were (those three reviews above remain excellent introductions to them btw, and of course there’s also their Wikipedia page), and then get stuck into the video:

And in the interests of full disclosure, One More Chance happened to be the first song I’ve ever translated that I needed my wife’s ID to get the lyrics from Naver for, as it turned out that it had been banned for public broadcast for the heinous crime of mentioning alcohol, which you can read more about here or here (and more about increasing opposition to such inane censorship here, here, or here). Not that I seriously think that that biased me of course, although I did realize later that the song would make little sense without the alcohol in it.

But at the very least, I was clearly expecting a message of female empowerment in the lyrics, and – surprise, surprise – got one. Albeit only after giving up on it in frustration late last night, then realizing in the light of day that that narrative was the only way to resolve its many ambiguities. Was I just projecting though, reaching for a solution? Please judge for yourselves if the following explanations objectively justify that conclusion then, and why I ultimately think the song should actually be called Hear Me instead!

Update - With my eternal gratitude, reader Seamus Walsh has spent a great deal of time in the comments analyzing the lyrics himself, including noting many minor and some major mistakes with my translation. Starting here, please make sure to read those also!

아담의 갈비뼈를 뺐다고? 진짜 빼야 될 사람 난데

내 허리 통뼈 이대론 안 돼 웃지 마라 진짜 진지하다고

소주는 싫어 잔이 작아 얼굴 더 커 보이잖아

막걸리 가자 잔도 크고 양도 많아 내 스타일이야

오늘 끝까지 한번 달린다 Let’s Go

It’s said Adam’s rib was pulled out? Really, I’m the person who needs things taken out.

I can’t endure my big-boned waist as it is. Don’t laugh, I said I’m serious.

I hate soju, its little shot glass makes my face look bigger

Let’s go drink makkoli, its glass is big and holds a lot, that’s my style

Tonight, let’s run until the end, Let’s go

In line 2, “뼈” by itself means “bone”, and “통” means…well, it has 8 entries in my dictionary. But “통뼈” together is a euphemism meaning “big-boned” (e.g. “난 통뼈야!).

In line 4, I think there’s an unspoken “in order to drink”  between “makkoli” and “let’s go” (e.g. “막걸리 먹으로  가자”), but my wife says that adding saying “[a drink]” with just “가자” is also common slang for emphasizing how much you really want to have that particular drink (not that our explanations are mutually exclusive of course).

Finally, in line 5 I think “tonight” makes much more sense than “오늘/today” for most non-alcoholics.

Next, there’s the (sort-of) chorus:

아마조네스 시대엔 내가 왕인데

남자가 언제부터 우릴 먹여 살렸니?

나! 나 좀! 놔줘! 먹여 살렸니

나! 나 좀! 놔줘! 먹여 살렸니

지금이 최고로 마른 건데 살쪘대

오늘만 마셔 낼부터 다이어트 쭉쭉 간다

나! 나 좀! 봐줘! 아 쭉쭉 간다

나! 나 좀! 봐줘! 아 기운 없어

In the Age of the Amazons, I am the queen

From when have men supported us?

Me! Please me! Let me go! When have men supported us…

Me! Please me! Let me go! When have men supported us…

I’m the thinnest right now, but people say I’ve become fat

I’ll only drink today, from tomorrow I’ll diet properly

Me! Please me! Pay attention to me! Ah…I’ll do it properly

Me! Please me! Pay attention to me! Ah…I have no energy

The first two lines are simple enough here, but the third and fourth are very vague and frustrating. Partially, that’s because I didn’t know “놓다” could mean “release” (I usually use it as “put”), but after that who or what are the “먹여 사렸니” referring to exactly? Other translators think the whole line means “Let me go, I can feed myself”, which is certainly logical, but then there’s not only no indication of the object and subject like I said, but the verb is in the past tense too. So, my wife thinks they’re actually just repeating line 2 really, but which is too long itself to repeat all of it.

In line 6, “쭉” will always be difficult to forget for me personally because the term “쭉쭉빵빵” was the precursor to “S-line”, although here it means  “utterly/completely/entirely” rather than “a straight line [tall]“. Meanwhile, the “간다” means it’s something that’s going to happen in the future, as explained in depth in my discussion of T-Ara’s Like the First Time.

Finally, in lines 7 and 8, again other translators give – all together – “나 좀 봐줘” as “give me one more chance”, and sure enough, that’s the English name of the song too (although I don’t know who came up with that). But I’m going to have to dissent, as not only is “chance” not mentioned whatsoever (although I acknowledge there’s a [slim] possibility that it’s unspoken) but a verb plus ‘줘” means “please [do the verb] for me”, and so in this case “봐줘”  would be “please look at me”, or indeed “please pay attention to me”. And this is corroborated by in the video when Dana says it again at 2:10 (see below), as she both looks at the viewer the entire time and is stared at intensely by Sunday, albeit only partially because Sunday does exactly the same when she says “Let me go” too, as in the fourth picture up.

However, if there was a (conjugated) verb before the “봐줘”, like, say, “해봐줘”, then that would be quite different, as the “봐” stops being “see” but becomes part of the  form “[verb] + [try to do the verb]” (e.g. “해봐” means “try to do it”). But as you can see, there’s nothing.

Whether it’s “give me one more chance” or “pay attention to me” though, saying “Ah [as in "sigh"]…I have no strength” straight afterwards is still a bit of a contradiction.

(Author’s screencapture)

브리짓존스는 짝을 만났지

내가 걔보다 뭐가 못해?

선배들 얘기, 솔직히 반대

‘눈을 낮춰야 남자가 보여?’ 흥!

좋은 녀석이 있어 머리가 좀 사실 많이 크지

그 옆에 서면 내 얼굴 진짜 작아 보이더라구

그것 땜에 만난다는 건 아냐, 진짜

아담이 이브, 만난 정돈 아니고

죽도록 걔한테 목매는 나도 아닌데

나! 나 좀! 봐줘! 자꾸 생각나

나! 나 좀! 봐줘! 자꾸 생각나

Bridget Jones met her other half, right?

What can’t I do compared to her?

My seniors’ stories, honestly I disagree

Do I have to lower my standards to meet men? Hmmpth!

I have a boyfriend, actually his head is quite big

People say that next to him my face looks small

That’s not the real reason I met him

We not close like Adam and Eve were

I’m never going to be so in love with a guy

Me! Please me! Pay attention to me! This consumes me

Me! Please me! Pay attention to me! This consumes me

Easy enough to translate, but frustratingly vague towards the end. First, the “걔” in line 2 means “그” or “that”, in this case Bridget Jones, mentioned in line 1. Then in line 6, “더라구” is slang for “더라도”, which I scanned an explanation of (from p. 150 of 100 Korean Grammar Patterns/한국어 문형 표현 100) for you below (basically, it’s used for emphasis when you’ve telling someone about something you’ve directly experienced, but the listener hasn’t).

In lines 10 and 11 though, we’ve already established that the first part means “pay attention to me”, but the while the “자꾸 생각나” easily translates to (literally) “frequently think” or “unceasingly think”, what is the singer thinking about exactly? Late last night, my wife and I thought it was about the guy mentioned earlier, but (again) that’s a contradiction. If the next verse was about a guy though, as it certainly appears at first glance, then it could retroactively be about him though, but…well, we’ll get to that.

For now then, if we just take for the sake of argument that it isn’t about a guy, then it must be about the issue of people saying she just chose to date him because he made her face look smaller, or the wider issue of paying attention to her, letting her do her own thing. In which case, as that is the main theme of the song, then I think my own rendition of it as “this consumes me” is quite eloquent(!), even if I do only say so myself.

Of course, the lyricist may be just have been having an off-day too…

Show me! Show me! 어쩜 좋니

토크는 안 끝나고 우린 더욱 아쉽고

이 밤을 불태워버릴 우리만의 100분 토론

나! 나 좀! 놔줘! Yo! 100분 토론

나! 나 좀! 놔줘! 100분 토론

난 먹고 자고 울고 웃고 사랑하고

다 저울질하고 때로는 미워하고

오 매일 매일 난 큰 꿈을 꾸고 있는데

이 놈의 통 큰 갈비뼈를 빼서라도 날아갈 거라고!

Show me, show me, how

We got more to say, it’s sad that we have to stop

Our 100 minutes of talking will burn this night

Me! Please me! Let me go! Yo! 100 minutes of talking

Me! Please me! Let me go! 100 minutes of talking

I want to eat, sleep, cry, laugh, and love

I hate having to weigh everything up

Oh! Every day I dream a big dream

Even if I have to take out this big rib of mine, I will fly!

Ironically for all the time spent on the translations of previous verses, I didn’t really see have any problems of note in translating that. And by coincidence, it’s here that the fundamental message of the song becomes clear too.

Just a few lines ago, the singer was talking about her (literally) big-headed boyfriend, so it’s only natural to assume that she is still talking about him in this verse. But just think back to the situation: she opened the song talking to her (probably female) friend, she suggested that they go get a drink together…and until there’s anything to suggest otherwise, then she’s still talking to that friend here. So no, she isn’t sad about having limited time to talk to her boyfriend, and she certainly doesn’t want “one more chance” to be with him.

Indeed, only when you remove that assumed longing for a guy from the song, does it finally begin to make some sort of sense.

Unfortunately, the last verse below has (to my mind) a throwaway line about love which potentially confuses it, but again only if you have the preconceived notion that the song is about love between a man and a woman. Love her friend listening to her though, platonically or otherwise, and there’s nothing to be confused about.

아마조네스 시대엔 내가 왕인데

남자가 언제부터 우릴 먹여 살렸니?

나! 나 좀! 놔줘! 먹여 살렸니

나! 나 좀! 놔줘! 먹여 살렸니

아담이 이브, 만난 정돈 아니고

죽도록 걔한테 목매는 나도 아닌데

왜 자꾸 자꾸 네가 생각나니 이상해

들어봐 온 가슴이 그렇게 말해 이게 사랑이래 I got you baby

나! 나 좀! 봐줘! 자, 기운 내서

나! 나 좀! 봐줘! 가는 거야

나! 나 좀! 봐줘! 자, 기운 내서

나! 나 좀! 봐줘! 자, 가는 거야

In the Age of the Amazons, I am the queen

From when have men supported us?

Me! Please me! Let me go! When have men supported us…

Me! Please me! Let me go! When have men supported us…

We’re not close like Adam and Eve were

I’m never going to be so in love with a guy

Why am I so consumed like this? It’s strange

Try listening to me, my whole heart is saying this is love, I got you baby

Me! Please me! Pay attention to me! Cheer up!

Me! Please me! Pay attention to me! I’m going to go

Me! Please me! Pay attention to me! Cheer up!

Me! Please me! Pay attention to me! I’m going to go

And on that note, “Pay attention to me!” doesn’t roll of the tongue very easily, so I hereby retroactively change all instances of that to “Hear me!” instead, and submit that as a new song title!

What do you think? Am I simply projecting my own narrative onto the song, or am I onto something? As always, I defer to readers’ greater knowledge of the group and/or Korean abilities. Perhaps especially the latter in this case, as my epiphany about how much the song has been misinterpreted is so dependent on my alternate translation of just a few lines. On the other hand, from what I’ve read they’ve been known for grrrl-power from the outset, so surely the burden of proof is more on those who claim that this is such an uncharacteristic romantic love-song?

Update – Again, and especially if you’ve read this far, please make sure to read Seamus’s comments also!

(For more Korean song translations, please see here)

(Source)

…Sunny Hill have shaken things up in K-Pop by releasing unconventional music – at least as far as Korean pop is concerned – and they’ve garnered a new following by doing so. Sunny Hill is a talented group and they’re in the hands of creative people who understand the purpose of a concept, in that a concept not only melds visuals with music, but is designed to evoke a powerful response from their audience (Allkpop, September 2011).

Hey, I do like what I’ve heard of Sunny Hill (써니힐) so far, but still: nothing about their music really strikes me as really different. Rather, to me they stand out for their collaboration in in Mamma Mia (맘마미아) by Narsha (나르샤), the first(?) and only(?) Korean music video to feature a Korean woman kissing a Caucasian man, and then for their rare critique of the Korean rat race in The Grasshopper Song (베짱이 찬가). And I’d love to hear of any more such “socially-conscious K-pop” by them.

Pray (기도) though, doesn’t really qualify. But it is one of the darkest music videos I’ve ever seen (for which it was banned on MBC and KBS), and can be very moving. As the reader who asked me to translate it admitted:

Seriously. . . I was crying within the first 15 seconds.  I was a WRECK by the end.  My roommate came in and asked ‘Who died?’  Me? ‘The *hiccup* man in the *hiccup* videooooooo!’  The main character is the type that truly tugs at my heart strings.  Of course, Joseph Merrick comes to mind, but the character has such an. . .how do I put it…almost unspoiled nature.  Innocent in the most pure sense of the work – like the innocence of a child (that’s getting much harder to find today).  What I truly loved, though, is that it fit with the tone of the song but wasn’t melodramatic.  Dramatic, yes, but not melodramatic.

See here for an excellent discussion of all the symbolism in it. Meanwhile, the “mutant” is played by veteran movie actor Lee Jae-yong, and fans have noticed that only three of the five members of the group actually sing, although all of them are featured in the music video:

Save me from broken time

라라라 라라라 라라라 라라라

그 어떤 누군가가 기도하라 꿈꿔라

이뤄진다 했던가 어떤 모든 것들도

다 내게 말해 넌 나를 보고 말해 이젠 제발 멈추라고

한숨은 잔혹하게 거칠게만 들리네

허나 들리지 않아 어떤 구원의 소리

난 기도하네 또 나는 소리치네 누가 나를 꺼내주길

Did someone say your dreams would be achieved if you prayed?

Tell me everything

Now you look at me and tell me to stop

A sigh sounds so cold-hearted and coarse

But I can’t hear the sound of a rescue

I pray, I scream out, I hope someone will help me break out

The chorus is next:

Stand by me and necessary

점점 깊어만가 너를 앓을수록

라라라 라라라 라라라 라라라

Cry for me and I’m sorry

점점 패여만가 너를 잃을수록

제발 다시 안아달라고

멈춰 있던 나를 깨워줘 멈춰 있던 시간 돌려놔

어제처럼 그렇게 나에게만 웃어 보여줘

감춰 있던 슬픔 조여와 감춰 있던 아픔 올라와

헤어지잔 그 말은 아니 아니 아니 아니야

Stand by me, and necessary (pronounced “nesary”)

The more I long for you, the deeper I get

La la la, la la la, la la la, la la la

Cry for me, and I’m sorry

The more I lose you the more empty I am

Please, I beg you, hold me again

Please wake me from my paralysis, please give me back my frozen time

You showed me your laugh like that yesterday

Hidden sorrow is strangling me, hidden pain is rising

“Let’s break up” – those words, no no no

그 어떤 누군가가 사는 게 다 그렇다

무뎌진다 했던가 어떤 모든 것들도

다 내게 말해 넌 나를 보고 말해 제발 정신 차려 좀 달라고

눈물은 빗물 되어 내 몸을 다 적시고

온몸이 얼어붙어 땅에 늘어뜨리고

몸서리치네 또 나는 울부짖네

따라라라 라라라라

Did someone say that life is like that, that you just get used to it?

Tell me everything

You look at me and tell me to hang in there

My tears become like rainwater, I get drenched

I lie down, my whole body frozen to the ground

Dah la la la, la la la la

The chorus is repeated, then finally:

간절히 난 기도하네 listen to the song

대답은 또 나를 울리네

날아가는 나를 잡아줘 날아가는 우릴 돌려놔

떠다니며 잡히지 않아 너를 붙잡지 못해

하루만 더 살아보려고 깨물었던 나의 입술을

사라져가 이제는 아니 아니 아니 아니야.

Save me from broken time

라라라 라라라 라라라 라라라

I sincerely pray, listen to the song

And the answer makes me cry again

Grab me from flying away, turn back our fleeting relationship

It flouts around but cannot be grasped, I cannot grasp you

Just to live one more day, I bite down on my lips

But now it’s vanishing, and it’s not not not not there

Save me from broken time

La la la, la la la, la la la, la la la la

(Source)

A confession: just before I started translating the final verse, I stumbled across this translation on Youtube (embedding on blogs isn’t allowed sorry), and, finding nothing wrong with it, decided to use it for the final verse here too. Also, I have to admit that the whole translation is much more elegant than mine, so I strongly encourage readers to check it out, especially if you want to read the lyrics as you watch.

But there are some differences though, so I’d be happy to elaborate on those, and/or any other parts of the translation if Korean learners are interested. Alternatively, by all means please correct me if you think I’ve made a mistake!^^

It feels like a long time since I’ve posted something here simply because I liked it. So, let me put what I had planned aside for a moment and remedy that, starting by passing on this video of “internet DJ” Lee Jeong-hyeon (이정현), covering the 2000 hit Give it to me (줄래) by the singer of the same name. The next time I’m harping on about the evils of aegyo and female infantilization in Korea popular culture, please remind me of how much I love this video despite myself, and that being cute definitely does have its time and place:

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find much information about her when I first saw the video on Mongdori back in 2008, and I can’t find anything at all now. But I did find the music video of the song itself to compare (update: see here for a higher quality version):

And as it turns out, it was covered that same year by the Wondergirls (원더걸스), then by KARA (카라) the year after that:

Given that popularity; an English title that reminded me of double entendres like the “get into my core” from Girls’ Generation’s (소녀시대) Visual Dreams (비주얼드림); a doll in the music video that surely symbolized something; and the fact that Lee Jeong-hyeon was selected by Lady Gaga to open her Seoul concert in 2009, then — you guessed it — I just had to translate it!

(Lee Jeong-hyeon opening for Lady Gaga, 2009. Source)

뒤돌아 날 본다…넌 내가 셋을 셀동안

홧김에 끝내잔 얘길 넌 던진 것 뿐야

이대로 날 두고 갈 생각 전혀 없어 넌

거봐 너! 지금 너! 또 오잖아

Look back and you see me…while I count to three

You said that you only broke up with me because you were angry

You don’t want to leave me like this

See, look at you now. You’re coming back.

불안해 왜 불안해 내 말을 왜 못믿어

그렇게 겪어봐도 나를 몰라 왜 몰라줘

니몸에 날 묶을까? 내 옷에 써 붙힐까?

난 바로 니 여자라고…

Nervous? Why are you nervous? Why can’t you believe what I say?

Don’t you know me by now, after going through life so much together?

Shall I tie myself to you? Shall I write your name on my clothes?

I’m the woman for you

처음엔 좋댔잖아

섹시한 눈웃음도 감았다 살짝 뜬 우아한 내 윙크도

너 만을 위한거야

딴데선 난 안그래 왜 맘 좁게 날 의심해

At first, you said you liked my sexy eyes and my elegant, subtle wink

It was all for you

I don’t do that to other guys

Why are you so shallow and suspicious?

[CHORUS BEGINS]

톡 쏘는 콜라처럼 난 니 마음 속에 들어갈꺼야

지금은 화난척해도

또 풀릴걸 내가 안기면

Like a cola fizzing, I’ll rise to be in your heart

Now, you’re only pretending to be angry really

I know that will go away if I hold you

모든걸 가질래 아무도 안줄래

나 니 마음을 다 사로잡을래

나 오늘은 순결한 백합처럼

나 때로는 붉은 장미처럼

모든걸 다줄래 너에게 다줄래

나의 관심은 언제나 너뿐야

언제나 나만 사랑해줘 날 안아줘 너는 내꺼야

I’m going to have it all, I’m not going to give anything [of you] to anyone

I’m going to grab all your heart again

Today, like a pure lily, and sometimes like a red rose

I’m going to give everything to you

It’s always been just you

Please love and hold me always, you are mine

[CHORUS ENDS]

우리가 그동안 함께한 날이 얼만데

난 알아 널 알아 널 알아

너무나 잘 알고있지

하나에 하나반 둘에 또 둘에 반에 셋!

거봐 너! 지금 너!

또 오잖아…

A long time has passed since we were together

I know you, I know you, I know you

I know you so well

One, one and a half, two, two and a half, three!

See, look at you now, you’re coming back to me again

오늘은 뭐했는지 누구를 만났는지

핸드폰 왜 껐는지 물어볼래

간섭할래 사랑은 구속인걸 난 너무 잘 알지만

때로는…난 숨이 막혀…

I’m going to ask you what you did today, who you met, why your phone was off

I am going to interfere like that, because I know well that love is a prison

Sometimes it means I can’t breathe

할수만 있다면 넌 날 작게 만들어서

주머니 속에 날 넣고 다니겠다고

그게 소원이라고 그렇게 말하는 널

나 어떻게 미워하니

You said that if you could, you would make me smaller

So that you can put me in your pocket

That was your wish

How can I not love you when you’re like that?

[CHORUS REPEATS]

아무리 차가운 척해도 소용없어

넌 가득찬 내 작은 손을 넌 못벗어나

이대로 널 두고 갈생각 전혀없어 난

하나 또 둘에 반 셋…거봐 너 또 오잖아…

날줄래, 날줄래, 날줄래, 날줄래

There is no reason for you to pretend to be cold

You’re stuck with me

I won’t break up with you like this

One, one and a half, two, two and a half, three!

Look at you, you’re coming back again

I want to give myself to you (x4)

What do you think? Naturally, the feminist in me rebels against a woman loving that her boyfriend literally wants her to be his doll, but on the other hand the lyrics indicate that she’s by no means the submissive partner in the relationship. Even if she does uses a lot of aegyo to achieve that, which is the impression I get from Lee Jeong-hyeon seemingly going through her entire repertoire in the music video!

Meanwhile, apologies for the quick translation (I’m sure there’s many mistakes), and I’m more than happy to be corrected and/or explain any of it. But I do think I have the gist of it!

(See here for Lee Jeong-hyeon’s website [there's an English section], and here for her Twitter feed)

(Source)

Do Korean censors disproportionately target female singers?

No, not just those shameless hussies that sing about what they’d actually like to do with their love-interests I mean, and/or dance and show some skin to that effect. Because despite some obvious exceptions, I’d wager that Korean censors are generally equal-opportunity prudes.

Rather, I also mean those female singers that promote such harmful ideas as, say, that romance involves more than just sitting around looking pretty, waiting for a guy to notice you. Or that when you’re angry with your partner, you should say so. As whatever the actual rationales given for the banning of their work, be they indirect advertising, mention of alcohol, not wearing seatbelts while driving, or alleged double entendres in completely innocuous English phrases, somehow it seems to happen to women’s songs much more than it does to guys’.

Or maybe I just get that impression because I only ever pay attention to the women’s songs.

So, starting today, and hopefully finishing over the summer break, I’m going to painstakingly go over every banned song and music video from January 1 2011, noting the whos, hows, and whys, then moving on to the next…all the way until December 31. As I finish each month, I’ll write up the results and my analysis here.

I guess the next songs I’ll be looking at will be G-Dragon (지-드래곤) and T.O.P.’s (탑) Knockout and Don’t Go Home then, banned on the 4th and 5th of January respectively (with the latter banned a second time on the 12th!). But before I do, let’s jump ahead to July, when the Youth Protection Commission (청소년보호위원회) of the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family (MOGEF; 여성가족부) banned After School’s (애프터수쿨) Funky Man (펑키맨) for its “sexually suggestive” lyrics.

Not just because I’m a big After School fan, or because the recent news that it’s been unbanned is what finally inspired me to do this little project. But also because the muddled way the banned lyrics are being reported on Soompi (and just about everywhere else) clouds the slight girl-power theme of the song as a whole, and in turn possible — but I stress, only possible — alternate reasons for its banning.

Let me explain:

(Source)

애프터스쿨 – Funky Man by Nana/나나 and Lizzie/리지; also featuring Kyung-min/경민 of Pre-School Girl

commin oh ma funkyman uh woo 좀더 깊숙히

fallin I I I I I can break U down!

…

날 흔들어봐 빙빙 Swing Ma Boy

날 유혹해봐 Keep it 맘대로

네게 빠져들게

그래 좀 뻔뻔하게

갖고 싶다면 Ring Ring Ring My Bell

느낌이 없어 넌 좀 부족해

못 참아 지루한 건

말해봐 너만의 Slogan

Commin, oh ma funky man, uh woo deeper

Fallin, I I I I I  can break u down!

…

Shake me round and round, Swing ma boy

Try to seduce me, Keep it as you want so that I will fall for you

That’s right, shamelessly

If you want to have me ring, ring, ring my bell

I feel nothing, this isn’t enough

I can’t stand this boredom

Tell me your own slogan

(Source)

Originally, I copied and pasted the lyrics from Naver here, which still requires ID despite the unbanning. Realizing I was struggling with the translation because of the essentially arbitrary choice of line breaks made in that though, I decided to reformat them all, to better fit how they’re actually sung. And once I did, then in particular the question of who wants to have whom in line 8 — 갖고 싶다면 — suddenly made sense: if he wants to have her, the singer, then he has to ring ring ring her bell.

Also, if that “ring ring ring my bell”  is just not the random, unrelated Konglish that it first appears, but actually an integral part of the song, then that opens the possibility that some of the other Konglish may be important too. Bearing that in mind, then the “slogan” in the last line for instance, isn’t so much lame as a handy rhyming device for the “건/geon” at the end of the line that precedes it.

But in that case, what exactly does the the “try to seduce me, keep it as you want so that I will fall for you” of line 4 mean? Does it mean that, very very literally, being shamelessly dominated is what is going to ring ring ring her bell, my surprising ultimate reading of the first verse?

You can imagine that it was with some trepidation then, that I turned my attention to the chorus…

(Source)

가슴 뛰는 나를 향해

O.K 짜릿짜릿하게

그렇게 오오오 (오오오) 내게 다가와 DON`T STOP

지금 내가 원하는건

O.K 아찔아찔한 Game (어떻게)

오오오 (오오오) 어서 달려와, 소리쳐봐

난난나 Crack Crack Funky Man! 오 baby baby baby shout

난난나 Rock Rock on Funky Man! 오 내게 내게 미쳐봐

오늘밤 너와 단둘이, 너무나 달콤한 story

나만을 위해 춤추는 puppet

My heart is thumping, come to me

OK thrillingly

Like that oh oh oh (oh oh oh), come to me DON’T STOP

What I want now

OK, a dizzy game (how?)

Oh oh oh (oh oh oh), hurry to me and shout

Na-na-na crack crack funky man! Oh baby baby baby shout

Na-na-na rock rock on funky man! Oh, try to be crazy about me me

Tonight, just the two of us

[It'll] be such a sweet story

You are just a dancing puppet for me

(Source)

Great — that was the very opposite message in fact, and one which is continued in the the rest of the song too. But first, consider the way the banned lyrics are being described on Soompi:

The controversy was caused over the following lyrics from “Funky Man”:

“Oooh Ooh, a little deeper / shake me around / try and seduce me / for my chest that is pumping / OK make me tingle like that oh oh oh”

What do you think? Are the lyrics explicit?

Now that we’ve covered all of those particular lyrics, then you can see that they’re actually cobbled together from verse 1 and the chorus, whereas Soompi makes them look like a direct quotation of just two lines*. Why this difference is important, is because already they’re clearly not the only “sexually suggestive” lyrics throughout the song, which raises the question of why only those ones above were singled out by MOGEF. Let alone why this song was banned when others with equally or even more explicit lyrics weren’t.

Could the censors at MOGEF, perchance, have had different, unspoken motivations? Were they, in fact, just annoyed at how “You are just a dancing puppet for me” belittled men, and so banned it using the sexually suggestive lyrics as an excuse? Or alternatively, were they perhaps a little unsettled by what turns out to be a song not about a woman who wants to be dominated, but rather one very much on top?

Alas, all that is mere speculation at this stage, and arguably reading far too much into it — indeed, there’s been at least one occasion when MOGEF was actually quite explicit about banning a song for belittling men. Also, how much of an alpha girl does the woman in this song really come across as? Not just because of that first verse, but also because, whatever the song, being assertive and confident doesn’t necessarily mean that the woman demands that the guy come to her. Rather, shouldn’t she really be going after him herself?

*I translated “OK 짜릿짜릿하게” as “Ok, thrillingly”, rather than “OK make me tingle like that”, as quoted at Soompi. But I can’t tell if it’s an adverb or a causative, so either is possible.

(Source)

commin oh ma funkyman uh woo 좀더 깊숙히

fallin I I I I I can break U down!

…

날 바라보면 쿵 쿵 like a boom

넌 두근두근 쿵 쿵 feel so good

내게 말걸어봐

그래 좀 당당하게

날 원한다면 몸을 움직여

다른 남자는 모두 숨죽여

못참아 답답한건

시작해 너만의 Slogan

Commin, oh ma funky man, uh woo deeper

Fallin, I I I I I  can break u down!

…

If you watch me your heart will pound like a boom

You throb and beat, boom boom feel so good

Try to talk to me,

Yes, like that, confident and commanding

If you want me move your body

Other men hold their breaths

I can’t stand it, this frustration

Start, your own slogan

(Source)

Finally, there’s the chorus, the first two lines of the first verse, the third verse, then the first two lines of the first verse again. To make it easier to follow along, I’ll put them all together:

commin oh ma funkyman uh woo 좀더 깊숙히

fallin I I I I I can break U down!

…

가슴 뛰는 나를 향해

O.K 짜릿짜릿하게

그렇게 오오오 (오오오) 내게 다가와 DON`T STOP

지금 내가 원하는건

O.K 아찔아찔한 Game (어떻게)

오오오 (오오오) 어서 달려와, 소리쳐봐

난난나 Crack Crack Funky Man! 오 baby baby baby shout

난난나 Rock Rock on Funky Man! 오 내게 내게 미쳐봐

오늘밤 너와 단둘이, 너무나 달콤한 story

나만을 위해 춤추는 puppet

말해봐 boy

모든걸 보여줘

서둘러 boy

이밤이 끝나기전에

매일 꿈같은 이야기

해주고픈 이맘 Crazy

오 가져봐

오 느껴봐

commin oh ma funkyman uh woo 좀더 깊숙히

fallin I I I I I can break U down!

Commin, oh ma funky man, uh woo deeper

Fallin, I I I I I  can break u down!

…

My heart is thumping, come to me

OK thrillingly

Like that oh oh oh (oh oh oh), come to me DON’T STOP

What I want now

OK, a dizzy game (how?)

Oh oh oh (oh oh oh), hurry to me and shout

Na-na-na crack crack funky man! Oh baby baby baby shout

Na-na-na rock rock on funky man! Oh, try to be crazy about me me

Tonight, just the two of us

[It'll] be such a sweet story

You are just a dancing puppet for me

…

Try to speak boy

Show me everything

Hurry boy

Before this night ends

Everyday, a story like a dream

This heart which wants to do [that] is crazy

Oh, try to have [me]

Oh, try to feel [me?]

…

Commin, oh ma funky man, uh woo deeper

Fallin, I I I I I  can break u down!

(Source)

Did anyone else guess that the song’s actually about cheerleaders? No, me neither. And seeing as how management company Pledis Entertainment also claimed that there’s nothing sexual in the lyrics at all, then I’m not going to give much credence to that!

What I do take away from the song though, is a lack of substance and logic to the official reasons for its banning, which at least opens the possibility that the official reasons are not the real ones. And while mere possibilities are not evidence of course, if the biggest gaps between official denunciations of songs and their reality consistently occur in those about assertive females (sexually or otherwise), then, well, maybe that’s something.

Yes, I realize that that’s a little subjective, so I welcome alternative suggestions for judging this sort of thing. But either way, there’ll be far too many songs to cover to do much analysis. Instead, my aim is that all of the evidence I’ll present over the next few months will enable you to decide for yourselves.

Honestly though, as I type this I’m no longer so sure that the double-standards are quite as big as many people assume, not least myself. What do you think?