Big Bang - Still Life (Lyrical Analysis of GDs rap)
Okay let me have a second to completely nerd out about the genius lyrics in GDs part in Still Life IT GIVES ME BRAIN MELTS!!
The Eng title is "still life" which gives a bit of a somber feel and I'd dare go literally about how life can be "still" during times and where you can feel stuck in periods
The Korean title is 봄여름가을겨울 (spring summer fall winter) which is artistically about season change
And the entire song uses double meanings that point toward both titles perfectly in a weird harmony. So that's going to be my focus on this analysis!!! ...because I gotta limit myself somewhere, sorry guys, I can't babble about it all in one thread!
Anyway... Aka themes today are: Seasons, time passage, maturing, and just random Chinese characters and Musical history.
Let's hop on on on this weirdness!!
“Four season with no reason”
No comment on the English verse sorry--
비 갠 뒤에 비애(悲哀) 대신 a happy end
After the rain, instead of sadness comes, a happy end
He uses the rare word for "sadness" 비애 so it sounds like rain 비 in this Tiny comment but I like it, it sounds cool when he raps
On a fast Chinese sidetrack of 비애 (悲哀), if I'm not completely wrong (which I might be my Chinese knowledge is small as heck).
The first character means "sadness/sorrowfulness" and its compound parts are "Not" and "heart", which I'd understand as the negative parts (not) of the emotions carried in the heart = sadness
The second character means "to mourn/grief" and is composed of the parts for "chest" and "heart" symbols which are very indicating of how sorrow and mourning come from the heart/chest and are expressed through the mouth.
Cool characters. And also I srsly need to sit down and learn Chinese properly one day. Now bye and onto the real juicy Korean analysis!
비스듬히 씩 비웃듯 칠색 무늬의 무지개
Obliquely/askew with a quick smile/sneer, a seven-color-patterned rainbow
This part is cool because a smile is an upward-pointing half-circle, but a rainbow is downward. It's thus a sad face! That's why it's oblique.
In a way, I want to point out that after rain (mentioned in the 1st verse) comes sunshine! That's how the idiom goes. But between them comes a rainbow
And that's why it's neither really sad nor yet really that happy. It's colorfully bright, but also slanted downwards in sadness
Notice how it's also a QUICK smile (씩). Talking about how this in-between sad/happy period doesn't last and it's just a little period of time. A slanted coloful quick smile. Comes and passes by!
But it feels like this entire song is stuck in that specific in-between time of sadness and happiness.
Which is what the upcoming verses will be about. (How time passages feel like they don't really pass)!
철없이 철 지나 철들지 못해 (still)
Without maturing, the seasons passed, I can’t mature (still)
Do you take notice of how many 철 there are in this one verse?? 3 times! And yes, it does sound amazing when delivering the rap, but it also has a cool hidden little quirk behind it!
So I love this part specifically because 철 seperately has lowkey the same meaning here, but used with different verbs it gives multiple meanings (as seen by the English translations)
The meaning is "season/time", which connects directly to the theme of seasons/time passing I talked about before too btw ;) So let's go through the three different 철!
1. So saying 철없이 (없다 = not having), means "not having time/seasons", or more specifically not having experienced/passed the seasons and grown-up. The translation becomes "without maturing"
2. The second one 철 지나 (지나다 = pass by), this means basically the same as the translation of the verse. "the seasons passed" (or time if you want to use that translation)
3. The third one is 철들지 못해 (들다 = enter/have/contain) (못하다 = not able to) 들다 is a bit hard to explain as a verb, but in this context, it would both mean to "enter" something, but also as one enters they obtain and have/gain something. What is being gained? Wisdom/maturity? whatever it might be,... or maybe in the way I'd prefer to translate it as just the experience of time as the seasons have passed. 철들지 못해 would be "I can't enter/have/gain the time", or in a better translation "I can't mature"
I think this verse is cool in its way of using 철 to directly connect the seasons to growing, maturing, and getting formed by the passage of time as one goes through life by using different verbs that slightly alter the meaning of the word.
It also means something in the sense of in the PRESENT time one doesn’t HAVE 철 (철없이), and as it moves into the PRESENT CONTINUOUS one has the 철 pass by oneself (철 지나), and lastly as if a declaration of giving up the lyrics say that in the FUTURE one isn’t able to enter/gain the 철 (철들지 못해).
Connecting the same theme back to the title we can see that:
Life is still (Still Life). There is a period of stillness with a lack of maturing. But despite the lack of personal change, the change of seasons (봄여름가을겨울) doesn't stop for anyone even if any maturing doesn't happen. The double meaning in complete perfect harmony! *chefs kiss*
철부지에 철 그른지 오래 Marchin’ 비발디
Inside a bad until-now-lasting season of immatureness, I’ve spent it like that for long Marchin' Vivaldi!
OR
Inside a possible bad season of immatureness, I’ve spent it like that for long Marchin' Vivaldi!
Another series of 철s in the first half of the verse!! So let's look at them :D
철 = time/season
부지 = not knowing/ignorance (from the Chinese 不知)
---OBS! 철부지 together becomes “not knowing of the time/seasons” and automatically translates into “immatureness”
에 = In/inside
철 = time/season
그른지 = 그르다 (be wrong) + ㄴ지 (a grammar principle)
오래 = long
First let me touch upon why there are two translations here. That is because I don’t really understand that grammar principle ㄴ지 in 그른지. However I think about it it feels incomplete. There are two thoughts that came up in my mind when I saw it. It can mean two of things (as far as I’m aware).
1. “Up until now lasting” which in that sense is reflecting back to a bad season that’s been going on from the start until now
2. “Not knowing if it’s bad” which means that one might assume the season is bad but one doesn’t know for sure.
--I don’t know if this is because I’m yet too dumb to understand this verse or if it was deliberately written like this in an artistic sense to mean both. I will just leave it like this.
So continuing on, here we can directly translate the first part of the verse as “being inside a season/time of ignorance and immatureness** where the time hasn't had any effect on you”
(**= Note that immatureness (철부지) here too, just like the past verse, is about not gaining knowledge/wisdom/maturity/growth from the passage of time so it’s still using 철 cleverly here too)
The word 철부지 is also used to describe children and/or childish behavior. So it does mean not having been affected by the knowledge of time.
A ‘Still Life’, without changes and growth, despite the change of the seasons 봄여름가을겨울. Again! Harmonically connecting both themes and Eng/Kor title!
We are stuck in a stillness of inbetween period while the time flows past and we aren’t really sure if it’s bad to be stuck here or not.
The second part of this verse 오래 Marchin’ I don't really have a lot to say about it, it is kinda telling in itself. Spending a long time marchin forward through that period but not really truly reaching anywhere.
The entire verse is talking about being stuck in a season/time where wisdom, time, and matureness don't really affect oneself and one stays as an immature child despite it all.
What's interesting is the end "Vivaldi"!
Vivaldi too has composed a work called "The Four Seasons", in which each part of it represents a season and he would include sounds he would relate to each season to each song respectively making his own interpretation of time, seasons and experiences.
So GD making a shoutout to historical musicians who used the same theme.
차이코프스키 오늘의 사계를 맞이해
Tchaikovsky, today we greet the four seasons
Tchaikovsky also made a piece called "Four seasons" and this is another shoutout. Another piece I recommend yall to check out. Let's continue!
Another thing I find cool here is 사계 which is a word with multiple meanings. The most common one is "four seasons" and that's why I decided to keep that for the translation and to fit the theme of the song.
But there are other translations such as "profession", and this is really cool since he is mentioning people in the same musical field as him doing similar work like them. This verse could have been translated as "Today we greet the professions"
I should also mention that both Vivaldi's and Tchaikovsky's works are translated to 사계 in Korean so he can also be greeting/welcoming those art-pieces in this verse. All up to your own interpretation folks!! ^^
마침내 마치 넷이 못내
Finally, as if the four are forever
Not a lot of analysis here but I'm just going to point out that the delivery here is really cool because it sounds like he is saying the same thing thrice but it's completely different words.
He did pick words specifically that sound similar without really losing out on the lyrical flow in accordance with the theme.
Is this line about the four seasons lasting forever? Can this line be about Big Bang as a group too? Who knows! But I'm just going to throw it out there as the last point. BYE !
