#22 channels

[brianquesta]

[mnstrp]

UMC - 가난한 사랑 노래

(This is 'Loptimistic Remix' version of the song, appeared in Loptimist's 2007 album '22 Channels')

UMC - A Poor Love Song

(XSLP, 2005)

A love that's too poor, may it not have been love.

A love that's too poor, may it not have been love.

I appear once in a while, filling your room with cigarette smoke and bitter moist of soju. Your tired bloodshot eyes don't look me in the eyes, and I firmly grab your ignoring and refusing gestures with my big arms, and then, 'I love you.' I forget every rhetorics and jokes I've prepared and I only say it as if I'm so tough.

I think that's now just so boring. As I've been working here I've seen that, like putting a ring in champaign, or making the girl open a car trunk full of flowers, there are so many good ways to do it. But to buy flowers that much, I gotta give up my rent this month. I could borrow a car, but I would have to move out of my room. I want to live with you, of course, but before that I gotta propose you nicely. But I wonder if we have time for it. You spend ten hours a day and I spend twelve hours a day working. I rest two days a month, and I get to spend the time lying down and watching TV or drinking with my friends. Anyways, I don't want to tell you something uncool like 'please at least accept my heart' anymore. Have fun with your friends you're meeting, 'cause today's your birthday. Your birthday.

A love that's too poor, may it not have been love. A love that's too poor, may it not have been love. A love that's too poor, may it not have been love. A love that's too poor, may it not have been love. May the tears I shed while I stand turned back not be remained in memories.

I'm so happy that you got a job. I heard that that company likes pretty clerks. We didn't even think about photoshopping your photos, but I think it's only natural that you got hired. Don't mind even if your manager keeps staring at you. It's just a fate for pretty girls like you, like when I hit on you in front of a restraurant in town. You don't regret following me, coming to Seoul, do you? You didn't particularly express your feelings, but I can feel something even when we have a meal together. When I eat all the side dishes you don't like, there's nothing funny, but smile passes on my face. To give you when you go back to your hometown in Chuseok, I bought a present for you before. It was a wallet, but a motorcycle snatcher stole it in front of the train station. The problem was that I didn't gift-wrap it cause wrapping paper was too expensive. I worte and put a bunch of letters inside it, so he must have thought it contained a lot of money. The suit I borrowed from a laundry must have looked quite nice on me. I must have looked rich. Or did I? Although poverty makes a man seriously weak, those who have a lot of money are even weaker. I know that, but today's your birthday. Your birthday.

A love that's too poor, may it not have been love. A love that's too poor, may it not have been love. A love that's too poor, may it not have been love. A love that's too poor, may it not have been love. May the tear I shed while I stand turned back not be remained in memories.

Thanks to a quite heavy snow last winter, the mood was all right even when we just walked. You cried for a while once, saying you were tired of living just to make ends meet. Today, after I moan at you while being drunk, not giving you anything, as I'm about to come back home, you come to my mind again. But we do have freedom. We are not machines doing chores. Last summer, when I was working at a pizza shop, you were so beautiful as you hugged me and shouted like crazy on the back of my delivery motorcycle. You cannot not know love even if you're poor. Every man wants to give his woman luxurious beauty. That's true even when I know the most beautiful thing in the world is the side view of you when you hang out the wash on the roof. Today's your birthday. Your birthday.

(Original version of the song)