The Last: Unification of Selves

In BTS’ maiden documentary series and movie ‘Burn The Stage’, SUGA, one of the rappers in the group talks about wanting to become successful in his love, music; and at the same time not wanting to be famous as a young songwriter hailing from Daegu, Korea and coming to Seoul to fulfill his goal of success. His words present themselves as a conflict, for success is always followed by a burst in fame for some time. And for an artist whose success has been constant for almost six years into his career, the first realization of fame might have been filled with the idea of fear. The fear of losing it all in one stroke, digging your grave with one mistake. Anxiety and fear are not emotions unfamiliar to Yoongi (SUGA’s real name), and these scars are what Agust D’s ‘The Last’ explores.

The album cover of Agust D’s self titled album ‘AGUST D’

‘The Last’ talks about the struggles with social phobia, anxiety, and depression that Yoongi went through during his teenage as well as young adult years. His voice starts out with heavy breaths and then turns angry, raw, helpless; representing how the situations and his mind made him feel. But more than anything, the song has Agust D splintering himself into two parallel voices that inter-weave with each other as the song progresses; a manner of lyric writing we see afterwards in WINGS’ ‘First Love’ and Map Of The Soul: 7’s ‘Interlude: Shadow’. The song is formed out of the narratives of the two voices, his mind and soul scattering into the two selves of his making; turning it into an arena of anger and chaos and confusion all the same.

“Behind a successful idol rapper
stands my weak self, a bit dangerous
Depression and compulsion sometimes flare up, hell no
Maybe that’s my true self.”

The very first verse of the song is spoken from the point of view of the stage persona of Suga; the way he speaks is indifferent as if an outsider is watching someone convulse in fear. His voice is that of facts and even if he acknowledges his other self with the usage of the pronoun ‘my’ (indicating closeness); he talks about the other like a stranger he refuses to know. In his deadpan voice, Suga raps about the time he developed the fear of people (“It was when I was about 18 that my social phobia developed.”), and when he became ‘corrupted’ by the feeling of anxiety that formed against his mind (“Yeah it was about then that my mind became polluted more and more.”)

Art by anonymous on Tumblr

“Sometimes I’m afraid of myself
Thanks to self-hatred and depression that came to play again
Min Yoongi has already died (I killed him)
It’s been a long time since it became my daily life to compare my dead passion to others.”

The next verse is helmed by a self within Agust D which is neither Yoongi nor SUGA; it’s a confused confluence of the two selves and their struggles. In the above part, his voice is filled with overflowing emotions that makes the verse human and brings it into life. Unlike the factual voice of the first verse, this one is filled with the pain of the human experience. This voice is then immediately interrupted by the persona’s muted voice, where he talks about meeting a psychiatrist with his parents (“On my first visit to a psychiatrist, my parents came to Seoul and had a consultation with me/My parents said they didn’t know me well.”). And the next two lines the other self pushes the persona aside and whispers humanity (“I don’t know myself well either. Then who would know? (Who knows?)/Friend? If not, you? Nobody knows me well.”).

art by zetazyllar on Tumblr

“All those words uh are to hide my weak self
The time that I want to erase, yeah, it was on a day of some performance that I can’t even remember
I faced myself who got afraid of people and hid in the washroom.”

The above verse is of the confluenced voice talking about how it finds itself weak even when he does not care about what people say (“I say like a habit uh I don’t give a shit, I don’t give a fuck”), because his mind creates fear of their opinions and thoughts. He thinks of the words spoken wildly by the persona as weak because he knows that his mind does indeed feel afraid of people. The concert was probably one of the billion times the stage persona faced this voice that screamed within, but this time he acknowledges it. And he listens to it, the voice telling how he finds the success he has to be useless in front of this crippling anxiety (“Back then I, back then I,/thought that success would make it all worth it.”). He calls success a monster that bleeds him white (“The greed that used to be my weapon now swallows me, ruins me, and puts a leash around my neck”); and talks about how people and their greed tell him to swallow this cursed fruit and endure the pain that comes with it (“Some people stop my mouth and ask me to swallow the forbidden fruit.”).

And the persona, being one of the voice and the voice being one of him, understands it all.

art by depression-stays-but-you-don’t on Tumblr

“Shit shit I get it so please stop
The cause of all these problems is me, so let me quit by myself
If my misfortune is your happiness, I’ll gladly be unfortunate
If the target of your hatred is me, I will step onto the guillotine for you.”

The persona feels guilty of all the pain that he repressed onto this confused self that couldn’t bear it and tried to warn him. He wanted to disappear, to ensure that this self, which is inherently him, does not go through whatever he is going through now. He understands that this voice needs him like he needs this voice. He accepts this version of him, and the voice smiles in its own confused manner. Soon, the voice merges into the persona and then there is light: the Min Yoongi that was killed at the beginning of the song is resurrected, brought back to life by the unification of both the voices inside of his head.

art by zero-ghost on Tumblr

“Things I had only imagined became reality
My childhood dream is in front of my eyes
A little shit who used to perform in front of two people
Now Tokyo dome is in front of my nose
I only live once, so I live harder than anyone
Living half-heartedly can be done by anyone
My fan, my hommie, my fam, don’t worry I’m really okay now damn.”

The two voices unify in the last verse; and Yoongi is finally complete. He has healed from all his experiences with the help of us, his fans; of his group members and of other significant people in his life. He talks about how he went through an identity crisis and denied a part of himself the importance it truly deserved (“I denied my essence multiple times/My address is idol, I don’t deny it”), and that he accepts all the selves within him with all their flaws; because they are what he is, and therefore what his music is as well. His anguish, his pain are what make his music truly his and that there is no answer to cure this; so he goes and embraces the ‘han’ (referring to the concept of intermingling of pain, sadness, anger and hope) that keeps him going in life.

“The root of my creation is Han I have tasted the world’s sweetness, bitterness, and even shit
The time when I tried to sleep on a bathroom floor is now a memory to me uh it became a memory
I debuted holding onto my fucking crushed shoulder thanks to the accident on my part-time delivery job
In front of whom do you think you’re pretending you’ve gone through hardships.”

Agust D

The song ends with his pride showering through the spotlights within him (“My pride that I thought I had sold now becomes my self-respect.”), and he asks his fans; the people who truly love him to be proud of him because he is okay now (“My fans, keep your head up proudly/ Who else would do as much as I do? uh.”). He calls upon the arenas of AX Hall where he gave his first concert with BTS to now, where he is performing in Gymnastics Arena, growing with his members in tow. He calls upon the haters who doubted him through the expanse of his career by stating his hardships that he underwent as evidenced by the above lyrics. He finally calls upon the Han within him, the pain that drives him to create music, to create rhythms and turn them into diaries of healing and compassion, comforting fans worldwide.

‘The Last’ is not the end of a journey of healing oneself, but is the beginning to that path.

Lyric translations by doolsetbangtan.