‘Seoul’ As The Desire For Exploration
I’m a lover of different places stuck in the house of people who hate to travel.
I’ve liked to travel ever since I was a small child. Stories would float around my mother’s mouth as she talked about how I had giggled with the driver on our way to my uncle’s wedding in the hills of Pune as a one-year-old. Then as a six year old I became a lover of the camera on our trip to the southern, rolling mountains of India; placing the lens really close to the train windows. I would place my fingers on the vibrating rods of the trains, and then in the still glass of the planes. Chennai, Bangalore, Jammu, Coorg: I’ve never ventured out of the country, but reading novels and watching countless travelogues sharpened my knowledge. But then, even the small town I live in- nestled in the hills, so close to the Western Ghats that I can taste the salt of the Arabian Sea on my tongue, I feel like I’ve travelled the entire world in taste and words.
Which is why, Namjoon’s ‘Seoul’- the second song of his mixtape ‘MONO’ and right after venturing ‘Tokyo’ feels so personal to me.
“In the cold morning air/ I open my eyes without anyone’s knowing/ The harmony of this city–/ it’s so familiar to me.”
Seoul begins with a soft breath into the city he’s so used to. He is not native to the city (Namjoon spent his childhood in Ilsan: a satellite city close to the capital; reflected in the lyrics “though my childhood days are far away/and it’s filled with buildings and cars only.”) but he’s lived in the shadows of the large skyscrapers for so long that the city has become his home. It’s the city where he works, earns a living, has friends, eats, drives: and as slow as the feeling of homesickness goes away; the emotion of a city truly transforming into a home starts and forms a corner that stands like a wizened memory; likened to the soul that exists within a person.
“Why would it be that your pronunciation is similar to soul/ What kind of soul is it that you possess/ What is it that holds me by your side like this.”
The word “Seoul”, when pronounced, resembles the word “soul” very closely; and reflects that the soul within him- that was so small when he met the city- has grown into the width of the city’s soul both in height and in maturity. He agrees that he doesn’t have that many memories of the city (I don’t even have memories of you) and it makes him sick (I’m now so sick of you). The life in Seoul was far from his dreams as cities, as often they form, become mechanical really quick: and represent a pretty colourless life as the city opens its eyes and closes its brain at the same time every single day (The same old, ashy facial expression of yours). But then, he realizes that the city that he’s so sick of, has become a part of him and he a part of it.
“A bus that changes its scenery even when I’m still/ and buildings that look similar but a bit different from each other/ The scent of life that feels disgusting or not/ and cold parks that pretend to be warm.”
Namjoon then goes on to describe the various sinews of a city he’s become a part of; his observations of a daily life he wants to be tired of but strangely relishes. He gives descriptions of every darkness that should discourage him from living here; in a way he wants to leave, but in the most strange manner, he wants to stay. He says that the Han River has too much sadness and pain in it (Han rivers that take so much Han within); that you can’t see the sky even on the height of a swing (swings that can’t see the sky by themselves). He has friends who tell they’ll leave, but he regards them with disbelief because he knows that they can’t because they, like him, love this Seoul for all of its disappointments and faults. In the following verse, he describes the things he loves about this city unconditionally:
“I love everything of you, even your fumes and disgusting side/ I love the fishy scent of Cheonggyecheon/ I love the lonesomeness of Seonyudo/ and even the sigh of a taxi driver who said it’s a good place to live as long as you have money/ I love y’all.”
“If love and hate are the same words, I love you, Seoul/ If love and hate are the same words, I hate you, Seoul.”
I think the reason why Namjoon mentions both love and hate is because of their magnitude. Because one can love someone as intensely as one can hate someone; and for him, his experience with Seoul forms a love-hate relationship. It’s not like he proclaims that Seoul is the worst place to live, nor he thinks of it to be the best; he brings the city’s value to that of the city itself. There are things he loves the city for, there are things he hates the city for; which is very similar to our own selves. Seoul is pronounced close to soul; and there are times where we hate ourselves and there are times when we love ourselves. The chorus makes the city human; turns it from a jungle of metal and job opportunities to the smaller, more human pleasures it provides; food, space, development, people. Things we don’t pay attention to much.
“I’m leavin’ you/I’m livin’ you/I’m leavin’ you/I’m livin’ you/I’m leavin’ you/I’m livin’ you/I’m leavin’ you/I’m livin’ you/ Seoul.”
Namjoon uses the closeness in the pronunciation of the words ‘leaving’ and ‘living’; for he can never really leave the city. As a globally-acclaimed musician, he has to go on tours to other countries and cities for extended periods of time, but nothing replaces Seoul in his soul. It has imprinted itself on Namjoon’s deepest edges; and everywhere he goes he is reminded of the city. He can never truly leave the city because a small sight in another country that is also there in Seoul becomes a flight of remembrance. Even as he ‘leaves’ Seoul for other countries, the city ‘lives’ in him: it forms memories in his mind and creates the nostalgia that unlike the place he is in he knows Seoul like the palm of his hand. He can never truly leave Seoul, and neither can the city leave him; for they live in each other.
I was reminded of Seoul when I was reading Jack Finney’s ‘The Third Level’ where Charley finds himself lost in the Grand Central Station and eventually discovers a ‘third level’ that has stopped in the past. Both the story and the song- although written by different people, in different times, and in different places- bring out a kind of reverence and wonder within the city they live in (in fact, Charley too is not a native- he’s from Galesburg, Illinois- similar to Namjoon). They are realizations that a city or a part of it is not what it seems like and there’s always something to find out and discover: whether it is a miraculous third level that leads to the past, or the most mundane smells and people: just like one uses music and books as an extension of their exploration of the city of ‘Soul’.
Lyric translations by doolsetbangtan.
