Discography Discussion: I-Yah
When talking about H.O.T’s legacy, most will bring up their role in being the first idols in K-Pop (as we know it today) or how beloved “Candy” is, but you’ll rarely hear praise for how the bulk of their title/popular tracks discussed serious issues in Korea. And out of every song in their discography, I-Yah is the best example of this.
On June 30th, 1999 a fire broke out in the dormitory of a summer camp in Hwaseong during the middle of the night that killed 19 children (primarily kindergartners) and 4 adults. The “Sealand Youth Training Center Fire”, as it came to be known as, was a perfect storm of corruption, shoddy construction, and negligent adults. Even though laws about safety standards were changed and many of those involved–including six Hwaseong council members who approved of the construction of the center with it’s shoddy design, four builders and contractors who knowingly built the building with flammable materials, the owners of the center, and one teacher who was out drinking with owners instead of watching the children–were arrested, it still didn’t feel like justice was served to many people in South Korea–including H.O.T.
On September 15th, 1999 H.O.T much-anticipated 4th album came out named after the track “I-Yah” that was filmed in New York. While the popular idol group usually released a yearly album around that time, this album is unlike any of their others. While there were the standard up-beat songs like, “Forever Song”, and sad ballad tracks like “It’s Been Training Since You Left Me”, their “Talk” tracks are unique to the album.
And even though later “Talk” tracks are about the members discussing their dreams, the two earliest ones aren’t like that:
Talk ‘전쟁’ is about H.O.T discussing war. They also bring up what they would do if war started during a concert.
Talk 아이들 & News (From 1999/6/30 SBS 8시 뉴스)’ is a news briefing about the fire and is right before “I-Yah”.
H.O.T’s Message and Performance of I-Yah
There have been many songs by K-Pop artists over the years that discuss serious topics or lightly reference specific events, but rarely is there a song with such a specific message as I-Yah’s.
It’s important to note that I-Yah isn’t meant to be taken out of the context of Sealand Youth Training Center Fire. If you don’t know Korean, the English parts make it obvious that they’re criticizing adults who harm children. If you only watch the music video without the sound, you’ll still see images of children and structures that look like they’ve been through a fire. If you watch their October 16th Music Camp performance, you’ll see a video at the beginning showing grieving family members and portraits of the deceased children. Even during a concert performance of I-Yah in 2001, the same images of the children are shown on large screens behind the members.
The lyrics were composed by Yoo Youngjin, who is the main composer of the songs in SM Entertainment that deal with problems in society. These songs include H.O.T’s “Warrior’s Descendant” and “Wolf and Sheep”, TVXQ’s “Tri-Angle”, Super Junior’s “Don’t Don”, and EXO’s “Mama”.
If you’re unfamiliar with the lyrics themselves, I recommend you look at them because they truly put into words what people were feeling about the Fire. In particular, Jaewon’s lines of, “Who gave the permission to turn out the children’s flame that couldn’t even be burnt?” and “you wont’ be burnin’ my kids” stand out and specifically reference the tragedy.
There were times when parts of the song were censored on music programs. The two parts that tended to be bleeped out were, “What ya boys need i got about the “P” down, straight bout the “P” down make everybody get down” and “from the roof top I might snipe ya.”
As far as the performances go, there’s not much that stands out from their normal songs except their outfits and (most likely) unintentional audience assistance in overcoming censorship. Their outfits were a huge departure from any of their other wardrobes, as it’s one of the few times H.O.T meant to look intimidating. From the bright orange hair to the black outfits, it’s a clear reference to the Fire.
As mentioned earlier, parts of “I-Yah” were censored on some music programs, but whether they did it on purpose or not, fans can be heard chanting those lyrics and not being bleeped out, which continued the message H.O.T wasn’t allowed to.
Unfortunately, the legacy of this song is limited in Korea. When looking at a work reflecting on the Sealand Youth Training Center Fire tragedy years later, “I-Yah” isn’t mentioned. Quite a few idols have performed “I-Yah”, but it’s always with an emphasis on the performance and paying tribute to an older K-Pop group, and not the event that the song was about. Even during H.O.T’s Infinity Challenge performance of “I-Yah”, it was more a stroll through their discography than a reminder of why the performances during the original promotion period were so powerful. Also if you try looking up “I-Yah” today, you’ll find a lot of references to Boyfriend’s song “I-Yah” that has nothing to do with a tragedy, and is about liking a girl.
However, the history and legacy of “I-Yah” is unexpectedly primarily maintained by new fans and casual K-Pop listeners. This typically happens when someone stumbles upon the track after hearing about H.O.T or their music. Eventually they run across “I-Yah” and wonder why it’s so different to the rest of their discography. This leads them to looking for the story behind the track and discovering the Sealand Youth Training Center Fire tragedy.
Many times an argument will come up that when a pop artist performs a song about a serious event or is involved with a particular cause, that it’s just for publicity and they really don’t mean it or have an impact. While you might want to second-guess H.O.T’s intentions with “I-Yah” because they didn’t write the lyrics themselves, or had a large impact on changing laws and public opinion on safety standards, by using their popularity to promote such a song, they helped newer and casual K-Pop fans to discover the tragedy it was based on.
For many years, “I-Yah” has typically been the first tragic event in Korean history that foreign K-Pop fans learn about. This is especially important for foreign fans who think Korea is better than their country due to their narrow understanding of Korea from the music and dramas they watch. So even though H.O.T’s music was mainly targeted towards a Korean audience, by releasing “I-Yah” they unintentionally started a foreign audience on a path of learning the reality of their country years after their disbandment.
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