LOONA Paint The Town (PTT) Lyrics Analysis #1: “East of Eden”
PAINT THE TOWN IS HERE!!! And with that comes so much new lore and easter eggs for us to uncover. The lyrics for PTT feel chock-full of lore references, but today I wanted to focus on a specific line Yves says during her rap part with Yeojin:
We ain’t gotta East of Eden so keep it...
The whole verse consists of Yeojin’s part and then Yves’:
There’s no answer, just watch it
We’re gonna keep running, don’t touch it
We ain’t gotta east of eden so keep it
If you gon’ ball with us then just sweep it
“East of Eden” is often a biblical reference to the Land of Nod, where Cain was exiled when he killed Abel. It’s been considered the opposite of Eden by some commentators. Since then, lots of movies, songs, and pop culture have referenced “east of Eden”.
In the LOONAverse, the place where YYXY are in love4eva is referred to as Eden, a place free of outside suffering and pain, a “perfect” place, though we see that it isn’t everything that God promised LOONA, and they choose to escape.
The lyrics here are kind of unclear, so its hard to interpret what Yves means here.
“We ain’t gotta east of eden so keep it“ could mean “We don’t have an east of Eden”, or “We don’t have to east of Eden”. I think the latter makes a little more sense, even though it awkwardly treats “east of Eden” as a verb. “We don’t have to east of Eden, so keep it” feels like something has been offered to Yves, or LOONA altogether, and they are rejecting it.
Since PTT depicts all the girls battling (against God, breaking their bond to Eden and demanding a place on Earth, in my opinion), I think it makes sense that God may have tried to offer them a deal. They could reside east of Eden and atone, but LOONA refuses. They want true freedom.
