Love Yourself : Tear Sequencing
love yourself tear’s sequencing is probably one of the best in a BTS album
it begins with singularity a song about losing yourself when you find someone/something else. it feels a little to me like how the little mermaid would have gone had ariel not found her prince. losing her voice, her most important part of herself, for someone she didn't even know
then fake love a song which is about love turning sour. a love you'd give everything away for but not get anything back. it's the part where singularity instead of just realizing what they've lost themselves starts hating what the love which caused them to lose so much but at the same time they cant let go of what they've gained
then from love breaking someone it moves on to a broken someone in love in the truth untold. unlike the two previous songs where love made them lose something, here they feel like they're going to lose love because of themselves, because they don't deserve it.
then 134340 which is a perfect fit in the middle of the truth untold and paradise. it's a bittersweet story of a love of the past. a love you can't let go but can't hold on to either. a love who deemed you unimportant
from here the movement into paradise, a song to remind you to take a while for yourself, seems natural. 134340 talks about the person prizing themselves but also prizing the one who left them behind. paradise is about prizing yourself and loving yourself the way you'd love others. paradise tells you it's okay to not have a dream as long as you're happy.
this is where the album starts becoming positive, telling us that we don't need to have big ideals or to reach the end of the race. it seems like a breath of fresh air after the darker themes dealt with before but it is also a message to the members themselves. a reminder to take a breath. a reminder to pause to just smile in the middle of all this pain and hurt that they're harbouring
love maze calls back to the previous themes of hurt and angst but still has a positive note. they talk about love being harsh and cold but still wanting to embrace it happily. it is a promise of forever. even in the midst of uncertainty (we know what situation this album was written in) a promise of always staying together.
magic shop is a also a promise, but one of comfort. they show us how much they trust us and how they know how much we believe in them through this song. there are a lot of references to the past with namjoon referencing his older tweets, hoseok referencing his thank you note from hyyh 1 and yoongi referring to the last. they go on to add that everything they have done in the past was for us, to comfort us and take our pain away. its a reminder of how we listened to them and their story and now in turn they want to listen to us.
naturally from the promise to tell their own story and listen to ours in magic shop, it goes on to airplane part 2 where they actually tell their story —, their love for music, their insecurities as ‘stars’ in the spotlight.
from talking about stars which they don't see (presumably in themselves) they move on to anpanman where they talk about becoming their own hero as well as a hero for all those around them. not a superhero just a normal regular hero who will just uplift you. they also talk about their fear of who they are and the hurt they often mask in order to remove some of ours. they talk about their fear of letting us down while being a simple hero, no superman, just an anpanman.
from their fear they move on to their confidence in themselves in so what. a reminder to just trust ourselves and go for it. to not fall into our meaningless worries and just say so what and go. so what somehow feels like a call back to the run era, with them telling us to let go of our worries no matter how big or small and just be ‘young and wild and free.’
then the outro which brings the whole album full circle. the goodbye which talks about the pain and betrayal of goodbyes going back again to the initial theme of the album, the pain which love leaves behind, the anger which is the only remain of a promise which was never kept.
all lyrics from doolsetbangtan
