[TRANS] IU ‘Pieces’ Album and Song Introductions
IU [Pieces]
The pieces in between my 20s that I purposely didn’t take out
1. Drama
It’s a song that I wrote when I was 20. I composed it because I wanted to cheer up a friend who was going through a breakup and was being very pessimistic about love for a few days. Although I didn’t release it yet, I have so much affection for this song that I sang it for my concert en-encore [T/L note: another encore after the encore] every year without fail. I occasionally tried to write songs with similar emotions, but it seemed like I was just trying to imitate (a version of myself from) a chapter that had already passed in my life, so I stopped doing that.
When I sang it during concerts, because I was in the moment, I could sing it easily and cheerfully, but while recording it, I realised that this was indeed totally different. Out of all the songs I recorded this time, I had the most difficulty with this song, trying to find the character [get into character]. In order to bring out the atmosphere during concerts as much as possible, there wasn’t any special arrangement done for this song.
I’m sincerely grateful towards my fans who didn’t forget the existence of the song ‘Drama’ and strongly requested for it to be released officially. ‘Drama’ is in between ‘Hold My Hand’ which made my blood boil (with ambition) because it was my first (self-composed song) and ‘Friday’ which I was already feeling pretty relaxed about, before I knew it. This song which I was not ambitious about nominating (for this album), because it’s a precious song that I hold close to my heart, perhaps is the reason and theme for this collection of (music) pieces.
2. Next Stop
I started writing this song when I was 25, so by the time I was done, I was 26. There are some songs whereby the lyrics and melody come to my mind together, like a piece of music born with the two as one. It had been awhile since I had a song like that and this was one of them.
It can’t be helped that (I am) biased towards such songs.
There wasn’t any format or particular chord work that I worked hard on, but the moment I wrote the first verse as easily as breathing, I was so in love with this song.
But even then, I forgot about it. Heh.
It was a year later when I encountered my character ‘Jian’ in ‘My Mister’ that I naturally took on that character and was able to finish the second verse. While there was no plan cast in stone, it was a song that I definitely wanted to release one day. Beyond being a storyteller, but as a top liner [T/L note: person who composes the main melody of a song], I think this song contains my most central emotions as a creator.
This is the only song that we mixed in the vocals from the guide version. It contains both my voice from 3 years ago, as well as my current voice. I sang it calmly back then, but now I sing it in a way that appeals (to emotions). Ironically, it might be because it’s all in the past now.
Between Jieun and Jian is a ‘station’.
The two are connected by the distance of a station.
[T/L note: literal translation of the Korean song title is ‘The Station’.]
3. Winter Sleep
It started out as a sketch when I was 27 and had more thoughts than usual about a life leaving this world and about being left on such a world and I finally completed the song when I was 29, after experiencing several more huge separations.
It contains the story of welcoming the first year alone after sending off a beloved family member, friend or pet. It was a track that the lyrics were not difficult to write due to the clear plot in the order of spring, summer, autumn and winter, but in comparison to that, (the whole song) took a much longer time to be completed. That’s because I wanted to use direct expressions, yet I didn’t want the emotions to turn out to be too superficial.
This song took the longest time to record.
I’m usually the type to try my best to be as concise as possible in my expression during recordings, but for this song, I didn’t feel the need to hold back my emotions. Instead, to maximise the feelings of longing, I tried to go for a rather bold(?) arrangement in the precursor to the interlude in the middle of the song and not in the second half of the song [T/L note: question mark used in the original text]. That’s also the reason why the song is based on piano, unlike the other tracks.
Even though a great loss came into my world, there were flowers blooming, stars coming up and poems being born out there without delay. In between these repetitive seasons is ‘winter sleep’.
As I sing this song, this time I really won’t break down anymore. They’ll know this isn’t a lie.
4. You
This is a song I wrote at the age of 24, when I was filming a drama in the mountains, so I couldn’t go home for days and I missed my friend who lived upstairs so much. [T/L note: IU was filming the drama ‘Moon Lovers’ and missed Yoo Inna who lives in the apartment above hers.]
I remember immersing myself in my character of the historical drama I was filming for ten minutes and imagined myself to be writing a postcard to someone far away, not knowing whether it would reach the person and with that, I affectionately wrote the lyrics line by line.
I thought hard about whether to include this track or not.
Many years ago, I had already told my fans that I did not intend to release this song, so in my mind that was the end of it. Then one day as I was surfing on YouTube, I happened to listen to this song again after a long time and saw in the comments that there were more fans than I had thought waiting for this song to be released. On top of that, perhaps because I had written the song sincerely, the lyrics in the song still touched my heart.
Feeling uncertain about whether I would include it in this album, I sang this song in the recording studio again after about five years and amazingly, starting from the first verse, it just came out right.
This is the only song that I let my fans listen to in the one and only year that I did not have any music-related activities in the 14 years of my singing career. [T/L note: It was an untitled april fools song that IU uploaded on her fancafe for uaenas.]
Between ‘Chat-shire’ and ‘Palette’ is ‘You’ wanting to slowly and quietly flow along.
It’s probably the song (title) with the least syllables out of all the songs I’ve worked on.
5. Love Letter
I sketched this song at 26, completed it when I was 28, and “even” gave it to another artist. It was the first time ever since I started composing that another singer sang my song. [T/L note: Previously IU only wrote lyrics for others’ songs, like Cherry B’s “Her” and Jung Seunghwan’s “The Snowman”, Seulong’s “The Moment” and Sam Kim’s “When You Fall”.]
Last year, I went on KBS ‘Sketchbook’ and sang this song, which gave me the opportunity to work with Jung Seunghwan, who is a singer I admire. When we were working together on this song, I briefly explained to Antenna and Jung Seunghwan about (my plans) to release this collection of my pieces and earned their consent to release the song. I wrote the lyrics based on the scenario of one half of an elderly couple leaving the world first and writing a final love letter for the other half who is left behind.
If Jung Seunghwan’s version is more calm and refined, I wanted my version of ‘Love Letter’ to be delivered in a more straightforward manner.
The arrangement of the song is fairytale-like and lovely, but I tried to make the vocals sound solid and the song was comparatively easy to record. I also tried to vary the ‘da-o’ part each time it was repeated throughout the song.
The last part of the lyrics, ‘I am still there, remaining in your heart, more than anywhere else’ became the seed of the last track ‘Epilogue’ in my 5th album ‘LILAC’. It’s also something that I want to tell my fans that I am grateful for, who have known me for a long time, know me (for who I am) and continue to want to know me better.
In between a novel and a letter, with this ‘Love Letter’ that I pressed my sincere emotions into and wish to send to those who love me, I close this collection of my (music) pieces.
Translated by IUteamstarcandy
