Outro: Tear

(originally translated in 2018; revised in 2021) 

 

Alain de Botton’s “On Love” might be the best book ever written about love, or perhaps anti-love. In this novel, the protagonist embarks on a maddening quest from the moment he falls in love with a woman he meets through a chance encounter in an airplane, analyzing every aspect of the love affair from beginning to end. What begins as the banal subject of a relationship between two ordinary people evolves into a philosophical epic, rich with references and allusions. Everything from statistics, history, religion, psychology, and literature to philosophy— Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and Aristotle—is mentioned, charted, or diagramed.

When I first heard BTS’s “Outro: Tear,” my mind immediately conjured up de Botton’s book. Both works are strikingly similar in how they introspectively delve into a failed relationship, expressing deep emotions of angst-ridden love and a devastating breakup through beautiful, inventive language.

 

Another aspect that intrigued me about the song at that time was its articulation of the universal human emotional stages of a breakup. A man, whose lover ends their relationship not due to lost love but because of his intractable insecurities, initially feels remorse and introspection. This is followed by seething anger towards the situation, and ultimately, a realization to accept fate, despite the enduring despair.

 

But that was three years ago. My feelings about the song have changed after the members revealed that it was written during the time in 2017 when they seriously contemplated disbanding the group to go on their separate ways. The rap line penned the lyrics, expressing a despair akin to actual parting, during their discussions of a breakup. Now, with the luxury of this hindsight, the context of these deep-seated emotions, reflected in the cascades of unsparing words and brooding beats that unrelentingly emanate from the song, becomes clearer, prompting me to change my translation of the lyrics accordingly.

 

The song begins with single piano notes, each following slowly one after another, six in total, creating a somber and foreboding atmosphere, reminiscent of the opening bars from Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor. These notes are then overtaken by the bubbling chords of a mysterious electro sound, slow and tension-filled, until eventually being enveloped helplessly by the fortissimo of a pulsating trap sound and RM’s vigorous rapping.

This intro is a part of the daring sonic and rhetorical experiments that BTS incorporates into this piece. Throughout the song, syncopated elements that disrupt the rhythm’s flow and crescendos that amplify the theme’s brooding mood, along with the emotionally raw lyrics full of frightening words and expressions, are used as weapons to unsparingly capture the overwhelming despair of a possible breakup. Such musical ingredients are rare in modern Korean songs. In fact, I cannot recall ever hearing a song with such an intense amount of ferocious vocabulary.

 

In the first verse, RM is devastated about the breakup talks, leaving him in tears and remorse. He launches into a soliloquy, unspoken to the other members, in which he blames himself for not being more honest with his emotions, that he should have done more to share his true feelings, good or bad, and display his affections more freely with the members. Towards the end of the verse, he even questions whether he truly loved them or not, only to reveal in the last line that he did. But even here, he ‘feels’ that the other members loved him more than he did.

 

RM, an extraordinary wordsmith, creatively rhymes six of the first eight lines in a mesmerizing way with a mixture of nouns and verbs—‘티어 (tea-uh) (tear, as sounded in Korean),’ ‘피어 (pea-uh) (bloom),’ ‘기 어 (gea-uh) (crawl),’ ‘디어 (dea-uh) (dear),’ ‘비어 (bea-uh) (beer, as sounded in Korean), and 비어 (bea-uh) (empty)” to compose lines that underscore his feelings of immense remorse. Unfortunately, the rhyming is lost in my translation of the lyrics, along with many of the clever metaphors employed by RM.

 

We know SUGA as a heart-on-his-sleeve type of lyricist, as clearly manifested in his “Agust D” mixtapes. Therefore, it’s perfect that he would helm the second verse, in which he rattles off a torrent of words and expressions never before heard in the modern Korean music and evoking ferocious imagery (e.g., in literal translations: “slowly slice my heart in a circle,” “squeeze my shredded heart with your feet,” “incinerate the torn fragments of my heart,” “kill me without any mercy,” and “destroy even the burned ashes of me”) to articulate how much rage and hurt he feels about the breakup talks.

 

Some of the fascinating and rarely-ever-used words that SUGA employs to frighteningly heighten the agitated emotion of anger are ‘즈려밟다 (zeu-ryeo- bahl-dah) (squeeze with feet),’ which, I recall, was once used by a famous Korean poet (though SUGA’s use of this word is completely different from his); ‘도리다 (doh-ri- dah) (cut in a circle and scoop out the middle),’ a word that is more apt for woodworking and paper art; and ‘갈기갈기 찢어발기다 (gahl-gih- gahl-gih Jjit-uh-bahl-gi-dah) (intensely tear and shred into little pieces),’ which is basically the scariest Korean expression there is. When I first heard SUGA’s verse, I was genuinely scared by the severity of the language. But I love the way he spits out these words with so much emotion and heart. It’s transparent how deeply he would have suffered had BTS disbanded.

J-Hope’s coda verse is arguably the most emotionally gut-wrenching part of the song. For him, the mere discussion of disbandment was akin to an actual breakup. Completely shaken, he cries that “이별은 내겐 그 순간들뿐 (Yi-byul-eun nae-ghen geu soon-gahn-deul- bboon) (literal: parting is to me those moments only) (my translation: our end came to me in moments).” What are those moments for J-Hope? They are the times when the word ‘breakup’ first surfaced, when they started to cry at the moment that word was uttered, leaving everyone devastated, and when the fears kicked in— the dread of enduring suffering they would face if disbandment were to materialize.

 

True to his style, J-Hope employs a flurry of wordplay, metaphors, nuances, and homonyms that confuses even native Korean speakers. I won’t attempt to explain them all, as that Herculean effort might leave me in tears (sorry, tongue-in-cheek). I will just go over the most fascinating one: Near the end of the verse, there is a line: “넌 내 시작과 끝 (nuhn nae sih- jahk-gwah kkeut) (You are my beginning and the end)” —and I noticed that he utilizes an audacious, unlikely homonym between the English expression “that’s all” and the Korean clause ‘에 있어 (eh ihtt- (s)uh)’ at the end of the line to affectingly tell us that his BTS brothers are everything to him (“My existence began with you, that’s all” or “You are my beginning and the end”). If you say them slowly, they sound nothing alike, but when uttered as rapidly as he does in this verse, amids the other lines, they sound nearly identical. All hail the great J-Hope! 

 

Hindsight is both enlightening and sobering. Learning about the inspiration behind this song has deepened its poignancy for me. Despite knowing the story behind it, I still consider it the quintessential breakup anthem of the 21st century, on par with Skeeter Davis’s “The End of the World” from the previous century. And in my view, “Outro: Tear” stands as BTS’s masterpiece, their magnum opus.

 

*Addendum: in the Chorus, the rap line shouts an exclamation that goes “아야!, (ah-yah!),” which means “ow, ouch” in English. I had thought that it was just an emphatic sound to heighten the brooding mood of the song, but now I understand that it was an expression of the intense pain they felt during their difficult time, articulated as a roaring “ow.”

 

 

Lyrics:

 

Verse 1 (RM):

Breakup talks spur tear

to well up unwittingly.

Cruel words, unspoken,

are surging through my mind,

burying me in deep remorse.

I had considered you as my dear;

now you’re bitter to me like beer.

Consumed with belated self-hate,

my heart’s about to bleed empty.

I have no one to blame but me,

my pretenses coming back to bite me.

If someone were to rewind the clock back,

maybe I could’ve been more honest.

Maybe then you would still love me,

with that same tenderness and smile

that you had always lavished me with,

still unaware of my fake acts

and looking past my imperfections.

Don’t tell me you’ll always remember me.

I get that if there’s a beginning,

there must be an inevitable end.

I don’t want to listen to that.

All your words that are true

Or meant to comfort me,

I don’t want to listen to that.

I’m scared stiff that

maybe I had never loved you.

It’s a bit late to say this,

but you were always real.

You did love me…more

 

Chorus (J-Hope, RM, SUGA):

You’re my tear (teer),

you’re my, you’re my tear (teer).

You’re my tear (teer),

you’re my, you’re my tear (teer).

You’re my tear (teer),

you’re my, you’re my tear (teer).

What more can I say?

You’re my tear (teer).

Pre-Chorus:

(J-Hope)

It’s true we’re walking toward the same path,

but that path has now led to our end.

We talked about being together forever,

but we’re now tearing each other down.

(SUGA)

We thought we’re walking toward the same goal,

but that dream’ll now remain incomplete.

My heart’s about to blow to smithereens,

so just incinerate it.

Let there be nothing left,

no agony, no lingering attachments.

Chorus (J-Hope, RM, SUGA):

You’re my tear (teer),

you’re my, you’re my tear (teer), ow.

You’re my tear (tair),

you’re my, you’re my tear (tair), ow.

You’re my fear,

you’re my, you’re my fear, ow.

What more can I say?

You’re my…

Verse 2 (SUGA):

Yeah, our end to me is T.E.A.R.

Tears, they’re now unnecessary

Beautiful parting, there won’t be any,

so just commence with your torture.

Woo, take it easy,

tear my heart out slowly.

That’s right, piece by piece,

and then step on them.

Make, make sure to crush any

residual affection or attachment.

Incinerate every bit of my shredded heart.

Ay, that’s it, don’t waver.

This is the finality that you craved,

so erase me without any mercy.

Ay, yeah, yeah, burn it.

Ay, yeah, yeah, yeah, burn it.

Ay, yeah, yeah, yeah, burn it,

so not a speck of me survives.

You’ve stopped pretending;

I’ve stopped pretending.

I’ve now glimpsed the ending;

don’t care who bears the blame.

Roused from my beautiful dream,

I shut my eyes in despair.

You have stopped pretending;

I have stopped pretending.

Pre-Chorus:

(RM)

It’s true we were walking toward the same path,

but that path has now led to our end.

We talked about being together forever,

but we’re now tearing each other down.

(SUGA)

We thought we’re walking toward the same goal,

but that dream’ll now remain incomplete.

My heart’s about to blow to smithereens,

so just incinerate it.

Let there be nothing left,

no agony, no lingering attachments.

Chorus (J-Hope, RM, SUGA):

You’re my tear (teer),

you’re my, you’re my tear (teer), ow.

You’re my tear (tair),

you’re my, you’re my tear (tair), ow.

You’re my fear,

you’re my, you’re my fear, ow.

What more can I say?

You’re my…

Bridge (SUGA):

We all know so well

what our words will be.

They are already etched in stone,

but how are we to utter those words?

Verse 3 (J-Hope):

Why are we tearing (teering)?

Why are we tearing (tairing)?

Now it’s pointless to me.

Our end came to me in moments, flashback.

The moment you uttered that word,

the moment we started to lose our minds,

the moment our fears intensified,

That word with two syllables signaled our end.

Wish I hadn’t teared up, up, up.

Wish I hadn’t torn apart, apart, apart.

We shouldn’t have uttered that word,

knowing we’ll forever suffer, suffer, suffer.

My existence begins and ends with you—

you’re my start and my ending

My life will now proceed with fear;

your leaving will cause everlasting

tear (tair),

tear (teer).