[LYRICS ANALYSIS] BTS - MAP OF THE SOUL : PERSONA 'Persona'
“’Who am I’ The question I had my whole life”
So here Namjoon questions his being. It’s something that he always said. It’s not the first time he brought light to it. But some people might think he already found himself with the glory and fame he accumulated. He is here making us all recall that such a question needs an answer from within. Money, success, fame and so on cannot define someone. It just gives them a Persona.
“The question to which I will not find an answer my whole life”
He tried and tried to find an answer but he keeps on changing and the world keeps defining him. He is expressing how hard it is here for him to find an answer in such circumstances.
“If I were answerable with a few mere words. Then God wouldn’t have created those various beauties”
Beauties here can mean so many things and to understand it we need to define it first ‘It’s the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind, whether arising from sensory manifestations (as shape, color, sound, etc.), a meaningful design’ or pattern, or something else (as a personality in which high spiritual qualities are manifest). So to cut it short, he is talking about something that gives satisfaction to the mind. we will understand more what he meant in the future lines.
“How you feel? How are you feeling right now?”
This sentence has two meaning. First he is asking us how do we feel about what he just said and secondly he is asking himself and coming with an answer in the next phrase.
“Actually, I am real good but a little bit uncomfortable. I am not sure if I’m a dog or a pig or what else. But then people come and put the pearl necklace on me”
“Pearls before swine” or “casting pearls” may refer to a quotation from Matthew 7:6 in Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount: “Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces.” The meaning? “Some people just cannot appreciate what is sacred and holy”. But, on the other hand, we have pearls: Pearls of wisdom, of truth, pearls of good advice, These are the pearls that straighten people out if only they would receive them, so should we just not waste our time on such people…such swine?
“I laugh more than I did before”
Namjoon may be not able to find an answer to his question. But nonetheless, he is happier now. If you heard some of past songs like ‘always’ You will understand how deep he was into depression and sadness.
“I dreamt of becoming a superhero, now it feels like I really became one”
Yes, it goes without saying that NAmjoon’s music and lyrics inspire many and save them from their dark space. If that’s not a superhero, then what is he?
“But as it goes on there is so much blabbering”
Even though they are influencing many people positively they will always be someones who will talk foolishly of them and their work.
“One says run the other says stop”
If this ain’t every comment section under every Korean article. People have divided point of views and here he said that you can’t listen to everyone and you can’t please them all
“This one says look at the forest that one says look at the wildflower”
This makes me recall these lines 27 “Consider how the wild flowers grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 28 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith!29 And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it. Luke 12:27-30 New International Version (NIV). One thing to take from this is that people say different things and you don’t know which one to believe. And he doesn’t know which one to follow.
“My shadow, I wrote and called it hesitation”
The shadow here is not any shadow. It’s the shadow from Jung’s map of the soul. The first stage in the exploration of the unconscious, according to Jung, is an encounter with one’s shadow archetype. Over the course of one’s life, certain personality traits elicit negative feedback and even punishment from others. This negative feedback creates anxiety resulting in these traits being pushed away from awareness into the unconscious where they form the shadow – the “dark” side of one’s personality. To become aware of and integrate the shadow into consciousness is often a difficult and sometimes heroic endeavor. Here RM is aware of the existence of such thing within him and that alone is amazing.
“It has never hesitated after becoming that. It keeps appearing under the stage or the light. Keep glaring at me scorchingly like a heat wave”
Since RM became famous he developed a shadow, his dark side. And this one appears mostly when he is on stage or under the light of the cameras.
“Hey, have you ever forgotten why you even started this? you were just digging it that someone was listening. Sometimes everything sounds like freaking nonsense. You know what comes of you when you are drunk … like immaturity”
This whole verse is spoken by his shadow.
“Someone like me, ain’t good enough for music. Someone like me ain’t good enough for the truth. Someone like me ain’t good enough for calling. Someone like me ain’t good enough to be a muse”
Here it’s a stage where he started believing his shadow and thinking he is not good enough.
“The flaws of mine that I know. Maybe that’s all I have got really. The world is actually not interested in my clumsiness at all”
He calls his work clumsiness and thinks that maybe the world is not really interested in his music. Again, this is just him battling his shadow.
“The regrets that I don’t get sick of anymore. I tumble with them every night until I'm disgusted and twist the irreversible time habitually“
BTS seemed to always have regrets after most stages. Always feeling sorry for the fans even after making the tiniest mistakes that no one but they can see and hear. And of course, before he goes to sleep is when he recalls the whole nightmarish day.
“There is something that raised me up every time. The first question: The three syllables of my name and the word ‘but’ that should come before any of those”
He means by these lines when people accuse him of his past mistakes. When he apologized and moved on. But not just that. Whenever someone is accused of something, another one will be like “But Namjoon did this and that”.
“So I’m askin’ once again. yeah. who the hell am I?”
You feel how heavy this question became after he told us how he struggles with his inner self and the world he was brought to live in.
“Tell me your names baby. Do you wanna die? Oh, do you wanna go? Do you wanna fly? where’s your soul? where’s your dream? Do you think you’re alive?”
These are questions that the audience might think they are mainly for them but it’s also questions that he is asking himself. Because it’s only ith questions taht we find answers. It can also be questions asked by his shadow for RM. and it the next verse he will answer those.
“Hey, my name is R. The ‘me’ that I remember and people know. The ‘me’ that I created myself to vent out. Yeah, maybe I have been deceiving myself. Maybe I have been lying. But I am not embarrassed anymore this is the map of my soul”
Here RM accepts his map of the soul. He accepts his shadow and persona and so on. He says that it’s true he tried to blend in with what people wanted from him. He tried to create someone they will love. But he is no more in conflict with himself.
“Dear myself you must never lose your temperature. Cuz you neither need to be warm or cold”
He is now who he wants to be. Who he needs to be.
“Though sometimes I might be hypocritical or pretend to be evil“
He is human so he can’t always be perfect and he can’t always act as he wishes
“This is the barometer of my direction I want to keep. The ‘me’ that I want myself to be. The ‘me’ that people want me to be. The ‘me’ that you love and the ‘me’ that I create. The ‘me’ that’s smiling. The ‘me’ that’s sometimes in tears. Vividly breathing each second and every moment even now. Persona.“
To understand what he is saying we need to define ‘persona’.The word persona was used in Roman times to signify a mask worn by an actor. In an analogous manner, in Jungian psychology, the persona represents the social mask that each of us “wear” in our interaction with others in society. Or to put it differently, it represents the personality that we try to portray to others.
You will think so he is going to create a persona to please people? No not really because it’s the person he wants to be.
“Who the hell I am? I just wanna go. I just wanna fly. I just wanna give you all the voices till I die. I just wanna give you all the shoulders when you cry”
But even after all this, he doesn’t know who he is yet. But one thing for sure is that he answered his shadow’s questions. He wants to do it all and not stick to one thing. By all I mean. He wants to be a singer who comforts you when you cry and be your voice when you don’t have one. H want to fly and reach higher and go to places he has never to before. that’s his PERSONA.
Wow that took a good hour. I hope you liked it and it helped you understand the genius behind these lyrics
