When A Phone Call Becomes A Thought
As a child, I would dream of small strings and paper cups: holding them close to my ears as if I could hear my cousin’s voice from the other end. Conch shells were my favourite too; for I could hear a faint roar echo in my ear and feel like I was talking to a friend, a cousin, perhaps a stranger at the ends of the universe too. Cups and shells represented the unknown to me; people I haven’t met, people who don’t know me. People whose voices I haven’t heard, people who haven’t heard mine. The phone was a revolution that allowed the world to be connected, and still is the greatest invention of the 20th century along with electricity. But sometimes, distance brings the heart closer than ever: for there are people who we haven’t met but we feel a familiarity associated with them. Telepathy is science fiction; the phone is reality. However, what if bonds bend the norms of space and planets?
134340, better known by ‘Pluto’, is a B-side in BTS’ 2018 album ‘Love Yourself: Tear’: the second in their Love Yourself trilogy. It takes the name of the re-classified Pluto, which was stripped off of its planet status in 2006 and re-named a dwarf planet. BTS reimagines the feelings that the dwarf undergoes as it keeps revolving around the sun without a name, and uses it as a metaphor to describe their relationship with themselves.
Meanwhile, Telepathy is two years younger: a B-side on BTS’ 2020 album ‘BE’. It talks about how in a world where people have been separated from each other during the coronavirus pandemic, BTS and their fandom, ARMY are bonded through the manner of thoughts and minds: that their relationship has not changed through the course of a global lockdown.
“If only I could, I wanted to ask
why you did so back then, why you threw me out
Without a name to myself, I still orbit you
Our goodbye became meaningless; that unchanging color.”
In the first verse, helmed by the group’s vocalist V, they talk about the day they lost themselves in the relationship they were in. Like the Pluto who has lost the label of a planet yet still revolves around the sun, they keep orbiting endlessly around their partner even if it means that they don’t receive the same kind of adoration from the other. BTS’ rapper, RM knows that he has no name (“There’s no name allowed for me”) , yet he feels their light and recognizes it as himself and loses his individuality by assuming that he is equivalent of them (“us is just a plural form of u”).He also says that the only meaning of his life was his partner, for he himself has no meaning in himself (“What would be the meaning of the remaining life for the collapsed planet?”).
“I’m just orbiting you
(I missed you, I lost you)
I’m just circling without traction
(You erased me, you forgot me).”
Throughout the song, the loss of identity is present; where BTS are in a place where they’ve completed lost their individuality and have become dependent on their partner. They become the planet that thrives under the light of a sun that never gives it anything in return. Even if they’re a part of the sun’s system, they’re not a thing of importance (“Once belonged to the system of the sun”). The temperature of the planet is used as a measure of the passion in their relationship; and like the frigid dwarf where light barely reaches, the passion in them has died and faded into nothing (“My cold heart is at -248 degrees/ it stopped on the day you erased me.”)
“It’s not much different from yesterday ay
In the same daily life, only you’re missing ay
We were certainly together until yesterday ay
but in a day so typical to the point it’s scary, only you’re missing.”
Suga’s verse represents the struggle to gain his own identity, but his heart is fragile. It bends at the one remembrance of his partner (“But, wait, this is a perfume that I had smelled somewhere ay/ when my memory is about to vaguely come back ay”), and suddenly a flood of memories blind his mind that wants to escape. Just like the dwarf planet that wants the sun to shower their love on them, they’re stuck in an endless orbit around their partner: in a relationship that is neither giving nor filled with love. The re-enactment of a phone call is the height of his verse: where they address themselves formally; the short-lived words are cold and filled with a void: no love coats them.
“(Hello?) Hello
(How are you?) I’m… well, doing fine
In contrast to my heart that feels like it’s about to explode,
at this moment, the temperature is -248 degrees.”
At last, JHope’s verse gives up on attaining their identity; he talks about revolving around their partner like the abandoned Pluto continually, just like the vocal line talks about in the choruses (“I watch you over the mist, who’s still smiling/ The reality of my irregular orbit without any meaning, you, and everything”). He now knows that he can’t exist without the sun, and that he will still revolve around his partner with the same kind of love he had held for them before, even if they don’t consider him as their star. He calls himself as a ‘number that’s hard to remember’ but he’s still revolving around them, hidden in the darkness.
While there’s frigid cold in Pluto, there’s the soft glow of warmth in Telepathy. It represents a hope in us that even if we’re far away, far apart from each other, we have songs and words and music binding us tightly. This motif is also shown in the Korean title of the song (잠시) which means ‘for a moment’. It shows that this feeling of being apart is not meant for long, for even in this pandemic, we’re together through hearts. We have a special kind of communication meant only for us; which is our telepathy.
“Everything’s alright, right?
You’re all healthy, right?
For me, these days, well,
I feel like I’m floating up in the air.”
Remember the phone call in Pluto? Both of these conversations; ironically, in Suga’s verse in both songs; represent two very parallel ways of addressing people. While the one in 134340 felt very formal and cold, Telepathy feels very informal and loving. It’s a song for us, like we write songs for them every day; love rising to the surface whenever we see them. Unlike Pluto where love feels one-sided; here, it’s an open confession from both sides (that of BTS and ARMY), a fact that they love each other the same way. Jhope talks about a blue ocean where both them and us would hang out, possibly referring to the concerts and tours held (the lights held by ARMYs together are also called ‘ocean’). These lines represent the hope of being together, spending time together: “the blue ocean where we used to romp around together/the little island in the middle of the blue ocean that we reminisce about together.”
“Although we’re apart now,
our hearts are the same
Even when you’re not next to me, yeah,
even when I’m not next to you, yeah
we all know we’re together
In the days that feel the same,
I’m the happiest when I meet you
In my everyday life that is different every day,
the person that is you is the most special to me.”
The above lines in the pre-chorus and chorus show the relationship between them and us: even if we’re in two different sides of the world, even if we’re not close to each other, we share the same heartbeat within us. Remembering the delight that would spread across our faces when they post a picture or a comment on the social media app Weverse: it’s really love. Love that gives each other sustenance and the will to live and go on in life. We are driven by that and sometimes the thought about their daily lives would cross our mind and we would smile. It’s a kind of bond where we know each other well; where even if we’re not in the same space, we know one another like the back of our palms. It’s a love that heals, a love that fills us with strength, a love that fuels us and them back.
“Oh can I be your Bibilly Hills
Like you did the same to me.”
RM’s verse tells us how we’re their pillar of strength, and how we’ve helped them survive an era where they’re unable to hold offline concerts and unable to see us, their ARMY. We’re like a mirror that is seen every single day (“I check on you, like a mirror”); as if seeing a picture of us can give him strength to carry on with life in a global pandemic. He calls us his ‘Bibilly hills’; a wordplay on Beverly Hills where we are pillars of each other; keeping the sky of our love intact and aloft in the winds. This is different from the love described in Pluto; that is a kind that zaps the energy of the person, for they’re the one revolving around the constant sun. The sun doesn’t care for the dwarf planet, but BTS and ARMY do care about each other.
Pluto and Telepathy are two opposites of the same love. The love that one ignores; the other heals. The love that one takes for granted; the other is held in your palms softly. The love that one enslaves themselves to their significant other; the other where both are independent individuals with different passions, and they cheer each other on. The love where one is the person with no name and no significance; the other where they both have names that are cherished. Yes, Pluto and Telepathy are two parts of the same heart.
Lyric credits from @//doolsetbangtan .
