(translated in 2020)

Sometimes dreams do come true. Ever since J-Hope’s mixtape entered my life like an unexpected gift three years ago, its pithy outro, “Blue Side,” with its adagio of ethereal sound and contemplative lyrics, has been my reliable balm whenever I longed for tranquility.

The original song contained only one verse, and without additional verses to offer context, its meaning remained elusive. The single verse felt like a minimalist poem, wistfully devoted either to a lost past self or to unrequited love.

Now J-Hope has graced us with this extended version, and with the added context, we know that the verse was about the former, not the latter. “Blue Side” is the haven of memory in J-Hope’s mind. He seeks its solace whenever he feels besieged by pressure, cooling down from the frenzy of his present life by recalling the past; those innocent, carefree days when all he cared about were his dreams and when he had the leisure to appreciate anything tinged with blue, his favorite color, whether it was the sky or the sea.

The new verses are a poetic tour de force. Every line is meticulously crafted, with J-Hope employing figurative language to create nuanced, symbolic imagery. This is one of those songs where a literal translation cannot fully capture its depth. While my translation will be literal, I will explain the lines that need further interpretation. For example, J-Hope begins the first verse lamenting that “모든 게 (moh-deun geh) (everything) 변해버린 (byun-hae-buh-lin) (changed) 우리 사이 (woo-li sah-ee) (between us).” The literal translation is “Everything has changed between us,” but in context, it implies, “I’m now completely disconnected from my former self.” When he says “us,” he is referring to his present self and his past self.

Verse 3 is also exquisitely written. In the very first line—“(어둠 속 (uh-doom sohk) (in darkness) 내 아픔을 (nae ah-peum-eul) (my pains) 토해낼 때 (toe-hae-nael ttae) (while vomiting))”—J-Hope uses ‘어둠 속 (in darkness)’ metaphorically to mean ‘in secret’ and ‘토해낼 때 (while vomiting)’ to mean ‘while venting,’ so the line conveys “while venting my feelings of hurt in secret.”

The next lines rise to the highest level of lyrical writing: “한숨으로 (hahn-soom-eu-loh) (with sighs) 찬 (chahn) (be full of) 공기가 (gong-gih-gah) (air) 죄어올 때 (jweh-uh-ohl ttae) (while squeezed/tightened),” which can be translated as “while becoming oppressed by the air filled with my sighs.”

Then comes J-Hope’s clever wordplay: “무지개다리에 (moo-jih-gae-dah-lih-eh) (in the rainbow bridge) 파란 (pah-lahn) (blue) 길만 (gihl-mahn) (road only) 걷고 (guht-goh) (walk) 싶단 걸 (sihp-dahn gull) (want).” In Korean, “rainbow bridge” can mean both a drooping, curved bridge resembling a rainbow and a fairy-tale bridge connecting heaven and earth. Moreover, the phrase “파란 길만 걷고 싶다 (I only want to walk on the blue road)” is a Korean idiom meaning “I only want to be happy.” J-Hope’s wordplay leads to this layered meaning: “I only want to be happy, to walk along the blue spectrum of the rainbow bridge (between earth and heaven).”

I love that, after lamenting his detachment from his past self and yearning for the innocence of his earlier days in the first two verses, J-Hope ends the third verse by affirming that, although he misses the past, he chooses his present life: “I’d rather consume the flame at its most intense stage of blue until I extinguish.”

For the bridge, he writes two four-line stanzas of fixed length with matching rhyme schemes:

There, my blue-colored reverie inside,

I see you reside

You may try to deny;

I have you in my dream’s eye

There, my blue-colored reverie inside,

I hold you close at my side

You may try to decline;

I have you in my arms entwined

They look deceptively simple, like a William Carlos Williams poem, but each line is subtly constructed to depict scenarios that he knows can only occur in reverie. The “you” he addresses in the bridge is his former self.

Lyrics:

Verse 1:

Everything has changed between us;

I cry out all alone

Blue

You have tinged colors of my tears

Into a hue of deep

Blue

Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter,

To feel exactly as how I did then

Blue

I long to return to when

I was innocent and carefree

Blue

Chorus:

Blue side, blue side,

Back to blue side, blue side

Blue side, blue side,

Back to blue side, blue side

Blue side, blue side,

Back to blue side, blue side

Blue side, blue side,

Back to blue side, blue side

Verse 2:

Sun shone on its coolness

And the clouds protected it 

Blue

Riding the wind from the sky,

I imagine myself going there now

Blue

Thinking about it

Comforts my mind

Blue

I stand under the blue moonlight,

All by myself

Blue

Verse 3:

While secretly venting my hurt feelings,

And oppressed by air filled with my sighs,

I realized then that 

On the rainbow bridge,

I only want to walk on the blue spectrum

I’m singing my blues

Singing my bloom

Back in my room

I long for those days: blue me and easy breathing

I weigh my desire between coolness and fieriness

Currently, I’d rather extinguish in the flames of blue

Chorus:

Blue side, blue side,

Back to blue side, blue side

Blue side, blue side,

Back to blue side, blue side

Blue side, blue side,

Back to blue side, blue side

Blue side, blue side,

Back to blue side, blue side

Blue side, blue side,

Back to blue side, blue side

Post-Chorus:

Blue side

Back to blue side

Blue side

Back to blue side

Bridge:

There, my blue-colored reverie inside,

I see you reside

You may try to deny;

I have you in my dream’s eye

There, my blue-colored reverie inside,

I hold you close at my side

You may try to decline;

I have you in my arms entwined

Outro:

Blue side

Back to blue side

Blue side

Back to blue side

Blue side

Back to blue side

Blue side

Back to blue side