Lyric analysis - 09. įį
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”įÆįį
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©į« [ FOR FANS ]
Doom: I'll get this out of the way now: I think a lot of "For Fans" is for the fans the same way "GIRLFRIEND" is for a girl.
Obviously, Seunghyun intended this song to be directed at his fans too. Heās told us as much. But I don't think Mr. Tee Oh Pee is in the business of making one-dimensional music, and I don't think he's the kind of artist who's only talking about one thing at a time. So while there absolutely is a genuine message to the fans here, I don't think that's the whole story.
That said, buckle up, besties. It's GTOP time.
Bop: Right, ok, Iām going to do a crazy thing here. Iām going to be the one toā¦ try and analyse it not through the lens of GTOP. I feel a bit sick thinking about it, tbh, but itās got to be done in the name of multiple perspectives and all š«” he says itās for fans, so Iām gonna believe him and do my reading around that.
However, I completely agree - there's never one clear-cut way to read his songs, as he intended. As always, if you don't like GTOP readings, don't go on the fucking GTOP blogs?? And also, please don't forget that these are simply our thoughts and feelings and we're not claiming anything as fact. I can't believe I'm having to make disclaimers this late on in the analyses, but some people on here and on X have been really weird and nasty lately and it's making fandom not a fun place for either of us š
Little rant over lol let's go.
T-T-T-O-P (T-O-P, T-O-P, T-O-P, T-O-P)
HELL YEAH YOU ARE, BABY BOY! Weāre absolutely catching the T-T-T at the beginning there too.
Absolutely nothing in this world brings me more joy than hearing T-T-T-O-P š
When I feel your hand in mine
Wish time would just freeze right there
Iām scared of getting bored, scared of myself
Yeah, yeah, the song is for fans. But I really like a GTOP reading of this verse.
Before I really get into the meat and potatoes of it all, let's talk a little about attachment styles. Bop and I have discussed Seunghyun's embodiment of what we very unprofessionally believe to be an avoidant attachment style, and I think this song embodies many of those characteristics, starting with this verse.
People with dismissive-avoidant or fearful-avoidant attachment styles can often seem cold or distant because they tend to pull away when relationships become too emotionally intimate. Independence, personal space, and emotional boundaries are often highly prioritized due in part to fear of letting people down, failing, or experiencing loss. Stagnation can also feel deeply uncomfortable, creating a constant need to keep moving, growing, and pursuing new goals.
I'm certainly not a psychologist, and I don't know the man, but to me this verse reads like Seunghyun is wrestling with the idea of closeness, especially as it pertains to a partner (ahem, Jiyong). Heās telling us he fears his own impulses in this relationship and fears that things will eventually become stagnant and heāll become restless.
To avoid that outcome, he wants to freeze time and stay suspended in that perfect moment with Jiyong before anything has the chance to go wrong. Could he be expressing those feelings toward his fans, too? Absolutely.
But this is a GTOP blog, and I do what I want.
I am going to look at it from a fan perspective, I promise, but first I want to talk about autistic limerence and monotropism (because we all know Iām deep into that Autismhyun truth). Itās the intense and singular obsession autistic people often have, but that special interest takes the form of a person rather than a thing. With how intensely GTOP took off, especially around the GD&TOP era, where they were spending so much time together and wearing matching jewellery etc etc, it wouldnāt surprise me if Seunghyun felt a form of this towards Jiyong. However, what follows autistic monotropism is often a disengagement from that special interest when it no longer fulfills or attracts you, and that sudden boredom shutdown can be quick and brutal. I know people who have literally fizzled out of an interest or a comfort food or a person overnight. Itās sounds like thatās something Seunghyun is saying here - Iām scared of my own brain, Iām scared Iāll get bored of you outside of my own control, I just want to stay in the moment when Iām in love and thinking about you and wanting to be with you always.
HOWEVER! Letās rein it in and go back to a more general reading lol.
I think the same can still apply, but aimed at his fans too. He feels their hand in his spiritually, his fans are there to guide him, to look after him, and to be with him on this journey, and he wishes he could stay in this moment with them forever - being on top of his game in BigBang - but he canāt, heās grown bored and he wants out and wants something different, even though he knows itāll break their hearts. If you think about the chronological placement of it, between Desperado and Stendal Syndrome, it feels like heās in this period with Jiyong where theyāre getting back on track again, Ji is making his new album and thinking about BB20, and Seunghyun is likeā¦ fuck. Ok, now what do I do? Iāve let them down so many times, will they take me back? If they do take me back, will I get bored of this celebrity life again?
Red, orange, yellow, green, hidden songs
One by one, we share that happiness
Sleepless nights, we stay up all night
Red, orange, yellow, green is obviously a reference to Last Dance, and we all know the weight that song holds. It was the final thing they all sang together as a group of five and the final song Seunghyun sang live to fans. Hidden songs is also interesting, because that specific line also featured in Squid Game 2, when Thanos was āserenadingā the pretty girl at the start of the first game. Itās literally hidden within his character, and felt like a little nod to his old fans.
Regarding the rest, Iām going to go a bit avant gard with it. I feel like heās saying that, one by one, people came back to him when they saw him as Thanos, and he shared that happiness to be back amongst the people that love him. We saw it in the Tudum week, where he was so gracious and sweetly flustered by the MC telling him, on behalf of all fans, how excited they were to see him back in the spotlight again. Then, his hidden songs, the music he was making behind the scenes for his fans, was keeping him up all night because he was working so hard to get it just perfect for everyone, the music soothing him to sleep because he was finally making art that he specifically wanted to make and it meant he could sleep soundly at night (in comparison to when YG stressed him out so much he was regularly powering through on three hours at a time lol).
I do largely agree with this interpretation, but for the sake of GTOP, I'd be remiss if I ignored the significance that "hidden songs" carries.
They've written so many songs, both together and as solo artists, that touch on the highs and lows of a long-term relationship and that deep, soulmate kind of love. If it suits you to believe all of those songs are about Dara or Kiko or... I don't know, Kim Gavin (???????) then sure, have fun with that. But those of us with our third eyes open know the truth.
We've spent hours upon hours analyzing their work, and, frankly, it's all pretty incriminating, besties. They've been writing about each other and for each other for years, all while hiding in plain sight.
I find the line "one by one, we share that happiness" especially sweet because I read it as Seunghyun saying that even though their relationship can only exist freely behind closed doors, theyāve still found a way to acknowledge their own personal happiness and love through their art. Their songs are little love letters hidden in plain sight; theyāre pieces of a story they've been telling for years to anyone willing to look closely enough.
We also know these two night owls regularly stay up all night, probably working on music together like they used to back at the height of their BigBang days š„¹
When I feel your hand in mine
Wish time would just freeze right there
Iām scared of getting bored, scared of myself
Yo my Kkokkalkoon- whatās going on?
This life, just you and me, bravo
So, Seunghyun has said himself that he picked Kkokkalkoon specifically to represent the spikiness of his fans (and picked Doritos as the English equivalent lmao, which I utterly reject). We know just how intense K-Pop fandoms can be, and I feel like his fans are no exception. People can be harsh and mean to each other, and mean to him as well, even if theyāre doing it under the guise of ābut I love you and I want whatās best for youā. I think he sees more of that than people realise, and we know how sensitive he can be.
However, Kkokkalkoon or Doritos are also a comfort snack, something you can rely on to be consistent and good every time. Itās just him and his fans, bravo to them because theyāve all come out of the shit storm of the last decade together. Heās had some fans who have stuck by him since the beginning, people that have consistently put together fan cafes and birthday gifts and messages of love for him even during his quietest times, and he now wants to give back to them as much as they gave to him: itās just him and them. When you think about how heās thrown a free listening experience in Korea, and heās about to throw a free fan meet in Japan, itās very clear that he wants to make up for lost time and thank everyone as in-person as he can.
I think your Kkokkalkoon interpretation works really well when applied to GTOP, too. As we see it, they're each other's comfort snack, right? That childhood treat that might go along very nicely with a crisp Zero Coke, for example. They're also two people who have the capacity to contrast sharply with each other. They fight, they make up, they drive each other absolutely insane, and then somehow keep finding their way back. Please refer to G-Dragonās āWho You?ā for further evidence.
I think you could also look at the use of 'bravo' as a GTOP reference. It's another performance term, something people would shout at an actor or musician after they'd done a great job. There are so many performance references throughout both albums, and obviously we know a lot of their music was written by the two of them - this life, just you and me, bravo. You could make the link between 'this life' and the amount of times life or live has been mentioned in their songs: Still Life, Alive, Home Sweet Home etc.
To the moon through the crowd
Promise Iāll be back, they see me off
Locked in with the moon, melody in motion
Fought with her, why do I have to go that far?
I couldnāt understand the look in your eyes
Dodged those tears that night ā I turned away
I think this verse and the next could be read as intensely GTOP, but Iām going to bite my tongue and keep plowing through with my general analysis.
So I think he was so singularly focused on his moon trip that the rest of the world justā¦ fell away to him. He was so excited, rocket going crazy, absolutely locked in and hearing music through the inspiration the moon was giving him. The general population was accepting that he was going and understanding that he would come back at some point, but his fans, I think, were less happy about it all. I canāt say I know for certain, because I wasnāt around at this point, but it sounds like he was getting a lot of criticism and concern from fans because they were worried about his actual reasons for wanting to go to the moon. It was clear that he wasnāt in a good place mentally between 2022-2023 when all the DearMoon stuff was happening, and it gives the impression that he wasnāt bothered whether he never came home in the process of it all. However, rather than listening to his fansā genuine worries, he just brushed it off because he couldnāt understand why they were so bothered. Maybe he didnāt even realise the possibility of him not returning was scaring people.
As you said, I think he was so hyperfixated that everything else gradually fell by the wayside, including his relationship. I can absolutely imagine a reality in which Jiyong felt deeply hurt and personally slighted when Seunghyun announced he was leaving BigBang, so his decision to leave the entire planet probably felt like salt in the wound.
And because we know Jiyong has a flair for the dramatic, itās easy to picture that hurt spilling over into fights, tears, and emotional blowups. For Seunghyun, going to the moon was an exciting, life-affirming decision, and his chance to pursue something extraordinary and entirely separate from the industry that caused him so much trauma and anguish. But for Jiyong, I imagine it felt like a painful rejection of the life they had built together, compounded by the very real fear that something could go wrong and Seunghyun might not make it home. I think from Seunghyunās perspective, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but from Jiyongās it was a betrayal, and they both struggled to see the other side.
Said letās break up, more than a few times
Hundreds, maybe thousands
Saw your flaws and it hurt me
But your good outweighs it all
And again, yes you can absolutely read GTOP into it, and boy trust me, I do, but it also applies perfectly to his fans as well. He said so many times that he was leaving BigBang, he wasnāt making music for anyone anymore, he didnāt want to engage in that celebrity lifestyle, but people kept begging him to return, which was painful for him and absolutely hurt him. However now, after reflecting on the situation, he recognises that everything was done out of love and genuine care. The good of their actions - to keep him motivated, to get enjoyment out of his creations, to share their appreciation for him - outweighs any amount of pain they put him through by demanding he stick around after he tried to leave.
Man, they were really going through it, werenāt they? Seunghyun isn't describing one dramatic breakup conversation; he's describing a recurring pattern. "Hundreds, maybe thousands" tells us just how cyclical these conversations had become. This could absolutely refer to his relationship with fans, but it also could allude to the number of times Seunghyun and/or Jiyong threatened to end things, especially as Jiyong's resentment and fear over Seunghyun's decision to leave continued to grow.
It's so enlightening to finally get Seunghyun's perspective on this period because it reveals just how disappointed and hurt he felt at the time. We see him take Jiyong off the pedestal and recognize his flaws, and then acknowledge that those parts of Jiyong genuinely wounded him.
But then comes the emotional balm (thank you, king). Despite all the arguments, despite seeing those flaws clearly, Seunghyun knows the bond they share trumps it all.
When I feel your hand in mine
Wish time would just freeze right there
Iām scared of getting bored, scared of myself
Yo my Kkokkalkoon, whatās going on?
This life, just you and me, bravo
Why am I scared of tomorrow? Why do I feel uneasy?
Sometimes I'm afraid we might lose each other
Heās also talked about how he was fearful that people wouldnāt want to support him anymore after all the shit he put them through, and I think that still holds true. Heās in this precarious spot now where heās got this newfound love but it might not last forever - heās felt the cruelty of falling from grace and heās so nervous that it might happen again and heāll lose all those long-term fans for good. Not for the first time, I hope heās well-medicated and in therapy, because damn that must be tough to grapple with š
I think this ties back to the avoidant attachment style discussion from earlier. Love and closeness inevitably bring the possibility of loss, and with that comes fear. The greater the love, the greater the loss.
Yo my Kkokkalkoon, whatās going on?
This life, just you and me, bravo, whatās going on?
Woahh- Kkokkalkoon Woahh- Woahh- I love you
I love this song - I love how upbeat it is, I love his singing voice, I think itās such a fun time. Every time it ends and he says āI love youā, I always find myself saying ālove you too, TOP!ā back. It does feel like a love letter - one that is incredibly vulnerable, a little critical, but mostly just grateful. Whether itās to us as his fans or to Jiyong as the love of his life or everything all at once, it doesnāt really matter. At the end of the day, itās just nice to hear him admit his fears but also remain happy and positive in this new era heās in.
It's kind of funny that I immediately read this song as a companion piece to āDramaā. Jiyong makes āDramaā so painful and heartbreaking, and then you've got this guy over here singing about Doritos. Typical T.O.P.
I see them as companion pieces because āDramaā is essentially asking: Why do you have to make everything so difficult? Why do you keep picking fights with me when things are finally going well? And Seunghyun's response here is basically, "Because I'm scared, and have attachment issues, and also you piss me off. Thanks."
Honestly, Seunghyun giving us this album and tracks like this one in particular, is one of the best things that's ever happened to this fandom. It felt like we only had one side of the story for so long. Now it feels like the full picture is finally starting to come into focus.
And we havenāt even gotten to Stendhal Syndrome yet. Sheesh.
