dinner had long been done and cleaned up now. night had fallen on a cold, autumn night, a long time ago. they had been in their usual spot when they were both busy with a schedule or having to do something. it was that incredibly comfortable couch that they had gotten for the house, that almost felt like a bed, and was perfectly plush - but, was very aesthetically beautiful in a way. nonetheless, they were curled up on the couch, all the animals situated around them as one of duri and kaiās favorite movies played on the television. however, duriās mind was very much occupied with something else. he looked upon maverick, before he spoke,Ā āwe should write a song together and present it to bc entertainment to use as a duet for us,ā he said, giggling softly.Ā
he leans forward, grabbing the notebook and pen. he opens up to the page that he started.Ā āi only have something small written down here,ā he said, before heās gently passing it over to maverick.Ā āi got sudden inspiration now, but itās something i want to do with you,ā he said, with a soft giggle.Ā āthough, it is a little weird because i think itās going into the lane of a breakup ballad... but, at least bc entertainment wouldnāt know anything?ā he said, giggling once more.Ā ābut, i only have,Ā āonly you, only you. i only loved you, my everything. but, i hurt you. iām sorry, iām sorry.āĀ i donāt think that would be the start of the song, it definitely has to be switched around somewhere.ā he says.Ā āwhat do you think? will you do it with me?ā
āthis isnāt how the imagination plans for anything.ā she starts off abstract, but the vagueness is enough with the twirl of her finger alludes to a stranger turned acquaintance, another welcome to her humble abode.Ā
arms crossed against her chest, she moves her eyes back onto ash āĀ ānonetheless, thanks for stopping by. whether the song becomes tossed into the graveyard of a harddrive or praised by the masses, thought it deserved full-scale refinement for full cathartic effect.ā and what she means is, selfishness that becomes when a song heals her own wounds, closure in the finish of a song close to heart.Ā āthough i wouldāve never thought knightās taeyong would be the next boy to enter my apartment.ā lighthearted in nature, her voice jokes when laughter clings to her words.
her feet drag one by one, pacing back and forth as the clacks of her slipper tap away at the wooden floors of her apartment ā a few hours in, and the base of the song complete.Ā āthereās a cliche of radio silence, and how that leads to a deafening broken heart...ā she trails off, flitting her gaze back to the notepad lying on the table.Ā āthink itās too much to play to the cliches and add a filter to the first few lines of the song?āĀ Ā
it had only been a few minutes since they got started. as if they didnāt already have work, kami pushed her friend into helping out with this track as well. she also needed to give minjung a chance to look over the lyrics. now that it had been penned, she could move on. and she had few ideas of what she wanted to hear in the track. once minjung had a chance to look over the lyrics, kami turned slightly to minjung.Ā
āso what are you thinking? i know itāll be hip-hop focused as the base...but i think i want a soft intro for those opening lyrics.ā she wanted something that would lure people in.Ā āand a nice drop, the plan is for this to bee a summer banger.ā it had to be something she could really have fun on stage with.Ā
starter for: @fmdminjung
production credits for minjungās bye bye my blue.
At first, Sooahās focus was writing lyrics and composing the music for songs that she didnāt even know if they would ever leave her computer. Then chances of releasing the said songs started to appear, and maybe she started getting greedy, or her desire to learn more continued to rise, and Sooah knew that she wanted to do more than just that. She wanted to be more involved with the process and work with artists because she knew they would do a good job and make the song sound exactly how it was supposed to.
Sooahās first time producing a song was with Minjungās Diana, and since then, she had other chances to work with her bandmate in the recording booth. It helps that they are so familiar with each other. She thinks itās easier to express her feelings and thoughts when the other person was always open with her.
āOkay, unnie, weāre starting from the beginning this time. Remember what we said when we were writing this one. All the feelings you wanted to achieve with the melody and the lyrics? I want you to put a little bit of sorrow in these first two verses, but softly, can we try that?ā
ash settled into his seat, glancing at kami as he steadily switched his mind over to working mode. it came rather naturally with kami now, after meeting up in the studio a few times to work on her songs or messaging songs back and forth. it wasnāt the first time theyād be working together, but it had been a little while since theyād met up at a studio in person since theyād both worked on jenga apart.
ādo you have a melody you want to work with, or do you wanna create a base track now and hand it off to someone later to make the melody?ā as far as he knew, they were working on a song for her album, so it only felt right to ask where they were starting.
composition verification / starter for @fmdhimchan
ābefore you give me shit ā yes, pianoās my forte.ā it comes out sheepish and all when he hides back to the screen, shoulders squared towards logic already pulled up on the computer.
he continues on the classical rifts, starting from the high octaves that slowly draw back to the lower tones of the piano. a mindless tune, yet itās nothing different than the conspicuous patterns they always fall back into. today, itās a switch back from the key smashes of league and the grittiness that lies on tongue in lieu for a new beat.Ā
he waits, pauses. runs his fingers through his hair when the lyrics written nights before become engrained into his head.Ā āthe idea is ā you have a steady piano beat, a mimicry of racing. let it fall in tandem with the fast punches of the first verse and into the second.ā gyujeong begins, pencil shoved between his lips in a quick run-down of the general gist of all that formulated inside his head.Ā ālike the feeling of having someone feel like theyāre on their toes when the first few seconds of the song hits.āĀ
it doesnāt take much, just incoherent abstracts to relay the shared space. when cacophony mixes together and a friendship so solidified in the ground ā itās a secret language exchanged between the two. code talk and quick smirks, he flashes a glance towards chani.Ā āany input? any chords you think would fit?āĀ
warnings: of the paras this one references major & seasonal depression the most, but itās not in depth descriptions
tldr; verification for sungās song nosedive. partial everything. sung writes a song about the big d (one thatās not his * * *), and wants to recruit features from people that he knows understand that struggle, which ends up being @durifmd and @fmdaidynn
crafting this album meant that, to the last moment, sung needed to be working on the production. every song needed to work together and flow perfectly, to create the kind of sound sung wanted. two exceptions werenāt asĀ strict, being the first and last songs. they were bookends.
that didnāt meant sung wasnāt going to try to make them similar anyway, even if the point was for them to be different enough to stand out a little. nosedive stood out, maybe less than happiness did, but it stood out nonetheless. being that it was the first song sung ever completed, of the songs that made it onto his final tracklist, that had a lot to do with it. most of the songs that were chosen had been written, or re-written, later in the process so that they fit together under the concept heād come up with. nosedive didnāt have a need to be completely reworked, and sung liked it too much to let go of it.
and that was why, minutes before he had to send off his version of the final tracklist for approval, sung was still working on fine tuning the productional elements of the song. heād had one idea that he couldnāt shake, in the shower that was meant to be used to distractĀ himself from the impending due date. sung had run out of the bathroom with his hair still sopping wet, to rush to his computer for as much time as possible. by then, his face and neck had about ten different lines of water that had dripped down from his hair, but sung really didnāt care, not enough certainly.
he needed this last change. earlier in the process, it was something that had crossed his mind, but it was so brief that within a few moments, heād already forgotten. but it was a great idea, and one heād been utilizing in small bits here and there throughout the album.
audio panning.
the first time sung heard audio panning in a song was the first time he felt asmr. finding out that asmrist also did audio panning in their videos was a whole other tingle-ful monster he came to unravel -besides the point. with time, sung had come to see how much more powerful audio panning could make a song feel, in adding to immersion. and if he was going to be late to a deadline, it was going to be for this.
and, in a positive light, worrying about this meant notĀ worrying about any other changes heād made on songs. bonus.
he relaxed the sound during their vocal and rap lines, just to come back full force throughout the song, like a motif. although, really, the entire song was part of a motif, as the album was. nosedive was meant to set the tone for the entire album, and introduce the general concept of what the album would talk about.
sung could remember his fear over that, as if it was still happening in the moment. back then, he hadnāt decided what kind of album direction he would go in, if anything at all. having a concept as involved as this one wasnāt on his mind at all at that time. however, he had ideas. from his best guess, it seemed like gold star might have wanted an album around winter time, and winter was known for ballads. sung wasnāt. however, in his own writing, in what mattered most to him of the songs heād put out so far, sung wrote about sad things pretty often. of course, he enjoyed songs about love, and enjoyed writing songs about love, but that wasnāt what was the biggest thought on his mind during winter. sans christmas.
winter was the most difficult of seasons to sung and many people, including those he saw every single day. it was a shared struggle amongst the general populous. sung knew that was something he could talk about, and if he was going to write an album for winter, it was something that he should talk about. that didnāt come without fear, though. starting a concept that once felt so grand and impossible brought a lot of fear with it.
weirdly enough, approaching duri with the idea, asking for a feature from him, helped. it was someone that he could share the burden with, not only in writing the lyrics, but in the entire concept heād started crafting. working well together as people was also a help, because it didnāt take more than a session for them to plot out the basics of both of their parts.
...both, because sung had realized part of the way through that the song still didnāt feel complete. he could have written a second verse for himself, but the bridge would work better if it was a back and forth, with someone who didnāt have vocals that would blow him out of the water any day of the week.
a couple of days later, when the fear of rejection had passed enough that sung could send out something as simple as an email, he messaged aidynn. the two of them werenāt close as people, but sung liked the other man well enough in the time they had had together. even if he didnāt like aidynn, heād have put on a polite and loving smile, for daisuke, just like he did with andy. thankfully, that wasnāt the case. from the most genuine place in him, sung knew that aidynn had struggles like he did, like duri did. and so, he sent off a message.
aidynn responded in the best way sung could have imagined, with a verse of his own, and after a few back and forth messages of little changes, sung felt secure in the song heād created with two people heād like to call friends.
he liked, too, that one of aidynnās lyrics mentioned one of the same phrases that he did in another one of the songs on the album. for as different as the composition had come to be from the bulk of the album, it still housed references to the rest, just like each chapter held tidbits of one another.
sung wasnāt sure heād make something so cohesive again.
when making nosediveās composition, he hadnāt been thinking about how to be cohesive. he focused only on making something that sounded good to his ears, and could house the kind of message he wanted to spread.
he started with a simple beat, snapping and clapping onto his own body. it didnāt make for the cleanest of recordings, especially the claps, but it was doable for that minute. then, he hummed. the thought crossed his mind of picking up another artist to be doing this for him, especially when he naturally started humming into notes his vocal chords strained to try to reach. sung ignored the thought for then, thinking it might be best to, i donāt know, have a song, before asking someone to join on a song.
with a basis for a melody, maybe for the chorus, sung tried to create an actual beat, from a mix of digital instruments, and the same snapping heād recorded before. the snapping wasnāt bad at all, production-wise. with it, he added the line of waving sound that flowed throughout the song, and later ended up being put through an audio panning reverb.
and from there, trouble hit in being so busy, that sung handed the song off to another producer to keep working on for him. by the time it came back to him, with a new beat inlayed, and lots of smaller additions, including a short moment of violin, sung had decided that this was going to be at least an option to take the album into. he could plan for several versions, sure, and if he was going to start one, it would start with this.
that motivation pushed sung into overdrive to finish the composition within the day, which was a big feat considering he had to drive to a violinist to add onto what the other songwriter had started with. after the audio panning, that might have been his second favorite part, and it was all thanks to someone else.
when it came to music, sung was largely a lone wolf, but sometimes, only the best results could come from letting others in. maybe he could send duri, aidynn, and that songwriter baskets of food from his mom.
summary: suji turns to naver for inspiration and writes a song in the shoes of thousands of anonymous users
date: september 2020
word count: 868 words, excluding the lyrics
notes: creative claims (full lyrics) verification self-para for missing u! shoutout to demi forĀ ābest friend naverāĀ
when suji had initially started writing music for her upcoming album, she hadnāt intended for all of them to be sad love songs. itās funny because most of them donāt even come from actual experience seeing that sheās been an absolute failure when it comes to her love life. but also, she doesnāt hold onto ex-lovers as some of her lyrics suggest. most of the times, her relationships have fallen apart because of mutual disinterest or simply lack of love. there was never a regretful moment or a time where she longed for the return of an ex.Ā
perhaps thatās why it was difficult to come up with the lyrics to this next song. the composition had been finished, and she had hummed along to a melody that popped up last night. it wasnāt completely finished, but she had a good enough idea of how she wanted the song to flow, and it only felt right that she decorated the rough draft of the melody with lyrics about regret and missing a lover since thatās what all her other songs seemed to be doing. however, unlike her other songs that had a source of inspiration whether itād be someone else she knew or a character from a movie, suji was hitting a complete blank on where to begin with these lyrics.Ā
and so she turns to her best friend naver.
the portal has a question and answer board and though it may sound morally incorrect to steal ideas from other peoplesā lives, sheād become desperate for some inspiration. she searchesĀ āex boyfriendā and comes to pages and pages of questions uploaded. the questions range from ways to completely block out an ex-boyfriend who keeps bothering me to ways to get back together with my ex-boyfriend. sheās surprised at how willing some people are to upload their personal stories online under the power of anonymity, but she also understands that when it comes to situations like this, itās usually more assuring to get advice from complete strangers.Ā Ā
itās been about two months since we broke up, and weāve tried reconciling once in the past but decided that it wasnāt going to work out. but iāve had a bit to drink right now, and i really want to hear his voice. still, i probably shouldnāt call, right?Ā
even through the text, suji can feel the sense of self pity and yearning. thereās a wide range of answers with one poetically telling the writer toĀ ānot do it. itāll hurt you even moreā and another being realistic and sayingĀ ādo it because if youāre going to regret it the next morning, might as well regret taking action than not doing anything at allā.Ā
she takes a bit more time to scroll through a couple more questions that sort of ask the same thing. some questions are straightforward and short, asking of critical opinions while others go on and on about to tell their whole love story. she understands that itās for context, and while she canāt fully sympathize with their stories, she learns that thereās a whole range of break ups out there.Ā
the one thing that catches her attention the most is how much people seem to miss someone whoās already moved on.Ā those stories appear to be the epitome of the heart wants what it wants, and so she begins to place herself in the shoes of these numerous anonymous users and starts writing.Ā
the day must come eventually
when i completely forget about you
the day must come where i close my eyes
and your face doesnāt appearĀ
from what she read, most of these users donāt even want to miss their ex-lover. it just happens. they close their eyes and see their face or they pass a cafe they used to visit frequently together and get reminded of the times they spend together. for others, itās the even smaller things. the scene of their clothes or the way their hands were warm. either way, itās evident that the other person has moved on, and theyāre the ones stuck in their memories alone.
iām missinā you
i only hold onto you
even as time passes and my tears drop
why does my heart remain filled
i donāt want to remain a memory to you just yet
i hate it, iām sorry
the lyrics are filled with regret but also the admittance of how they simply canāt seem to move on. all the posts werenāt filled with information about the ex or the actual memories spent together but rather their own abundance of feelings that have taken over. itās personal, and itās all because they know that they eventually have to get over it. they know that thereās no point on holding onto something thatās meant to be broken.Ā
suji thinks thatās what makes the anonymous posts even more heartbreaking. they donāt really need advice about how to get back with their ex-lover or how to move on, they just need the reassurance that what theyāre feeling right now isnāt wrong and that itās natural for one to cherish memories they had made.Ā
iām missinā you
iāll only act like this today
iāll forget you
by the time sheās done with the lyrics, all suji is hoping is that the thousands of people who wrote those personal posts may eventually hear this song and get the healing they deserve. thereās nothing bad about yearning after someone whoās already left, but she also wants them to realize that theyāre eventually going to be able to move on and find someone new. or even if they donāt, theyād still have grown from that one heartbreaking experience.
