dayflies: (Default)
hi hello! so i wrote another analysis of a txt song. i'm still trying to figure out how to format on here so please bear with me and the fact that the spaces between paragraphs are abnormally large??
 
a comparison
this, as you probably know is a remake of a song by light & salt of the same name, so i gave the original a listen, and i’ll start of this analysis with a comparison of the two versions.
 
the original fairy of shampoo is more minimalist in it’s instrumentation, and the sound is super funky and kind of disco-y - it also had an ocarina (i think) so that was pretty neat. light and salt is a fusion jazz group (according to a blog i read), so i think txt’s decision to drag the song towards jazzier territory was partly influenced by that!
 
apart from the melody, not much of the song was that similar; txt really took this song and made it their own, while still maintaining its core 90s citypop elements. i personally love that they made that decision instead of revamping the song entirely, but that’s because i have a personal vendetta against the horror that is edgy netflix remakes [shakes fist at sky].
 
a few notable differences

sick trumpet - (if you were following me when this album came out you might remember me having several crises about whether this was a trumpet or a saxophone. the debate ends TODAY). it sounds improvised; they might’ve called up a trumpeter and just told them to do whatever they wanted to in the recording booth. in fact, i tracked down the song credits and according to wikipedia the trumpeter is Jo Jeong-hyeon, who also plays the flagelhorn for in the song. i honestly have no idea what that is, and looking it up gave me little to no answers, but props to them, they did a great job!

groovy bassline - the bassline is probably my favourite thing about this song. this also feels pretty improvised in the verses, and once again wikipedia tells me it’s a real bass played by Jeon Seung-hoon.

yeonjun’s rap! it sounds great, and it works perfectly with the song.

a few similarities

the melody - i love the melody, especially the chorus. as i’ve previously stated in my analysis of mitm human beings love patterns, so when something breaks it up it surprises us, and the chorus does that! let’s take the first chorus as an example. in the first chorus soobin sings:
geunyeoman bomyeon werobji ana
seulpeun maeumdo meolli sarajyeo

when he sings do the melody goes somewhere we don’t expect it to. this is called an accidental. if we're talking music terminology real quick, every song is composed in a scale which basically determines what notes are used in the song. whenever a note that isn't in that scale occurs, it's called an accidental, and these "foreign notes" add tension and make things sound more interesting.

if you try listening to the chorus while keeping this in mind, you might be able to hear how maeumdo sounds different! this note catches us off guard since it does something we don’t expect it to.

call and response between the vocals and an instrument in the chorus. in the original version of the song the instrument responding to the vocals is an electric guitar, but txt has swapped it out with a trumpet, which is another way of paying tribute to the genre of the original version.

[the vocal calls] geunyeoman bomyeon
[the trumpet responds]
[the vocal calls] werobji ana
[the trumpet responds]

the dreamy feel, although txt amped up the dreaminess by a lot. i'll expand on this in the next section.

vibes or something

the song is super echoe-y; there’s a lot of reverb on it, it’s kind of like standing in a cathedral. there are also these layers of sound - if you listen to the beginning of the song there are some really ambient vocals as well as something Extra underneath it all. it fades in the verse, and comes back full force in the chorus before fading in the interlude to make room for the trumpet. i’m not entirely sure what it is, it might just be Super reverb, but it makes the song super atmospheric.

before almost every chorus there are these crystal tingly sounds, i wanna say it’s some sort of windchime but that’s probably way off. regardless, they really add to the dreaminess of the track, and adding the breathy vocals and the free, improvised sound of the bass and the trumpet, txt’s version of fairsham sounds really floaty - this is just a Floating Through Space With No Earthly Attachments kind of song.
 
bringing in the lyrics, the way they have constructed the song makes perfect sense:
Pushing through the square screen
Gently approaching me
Plating a silvery illusion
She is my own little fairy

Like the early morning fog
Coming closer to me
Her long hair, waving
She whispers with a soft smile
 
fairsham is about falling in love with a girl in a shampoo commercial, and they’re quite literally illustrating the fog they’re describing in the music itself with the dreamy vibe they’ve created. this is called text painting, which i also referred to in my mitm analysis.
 
so what does it all mean?
as always interpretations are individual. i personally think the floaty ambience makes the track a teeny bit unsettling. as i mentioned before, the original version of the song also has this same feeling of being in a dream, but txt’s version took that and doubled it (and maybe tripled it).

i kind of get the sense that something isn’t entirely right, and well, they are describing the feeling of being genuinely in love, and having your happiness depend on a woman in a tv-commercial; the soundscape might actually be a reflection of being in love with something that isn’t real. like getting attached to something that can only come true within a dream.

this is relevant on many levels; you could interpret fairsham a commentary on how capitalism essentially traps people within the system with a promise of a fulfilling, happy life (but only after they've worked for an appropriate amount of time - so never). or you could read it as a meta-commentary on the parasocial relationships between fans and celebrities. the possibilities are endless, really.
dayflies: (Default)
happy beomgyu day!! to kick off this very important event, i'm posting an analysis of maze in the mirror which has been rotting in my drafts for the better part of three months now.

hopefully this won't be too info-dumpy
first i’d like to make a little comparison to fairsham. mitm maintains the floaty feel of fairy of shampoo - breathy vocals, reverb, ambient backup vocals from best girl adora - but obviously takes it down a few notches. we’re kind of brought down to earth again, and i think the transition to some very classic, simple, acoustic instruments signifies this. 
 
in mitm the acoustic guitar really stands out as it is the main instrument for a good chunk of the song. there aren’t any drums to carry the rhythm, most of the time it’s just txt and the guitar. in that way mitm is pretty simple in comparison to all the other songs, but there is intimacy in its simplicity: we’re not only brought back on earth, but we are also brought up-close in a way the other songs don't do. i think the purpose of this is to make room for the introspective lyrics, and for listeners to really feel and reflect on the message txt are trying to convey.
 
when i analyzed this song i focused on two main aspects of the song; namely the phrase “please don’t give up on me” and the last part of the song ranging from the bride to the last chorus.
 
so, “please don’t give up on me” is only uttered three times if i’m not mistaken, but when i refer to this phrase i mean every time the melodic pattern is repeated, with or without vocals!

almost every time this occurs everything is in staccato, meaning that the notes are separated in a very clear manner. this breaks up the flowy feeling of the song, and very pointedly emphasizes the words whenever they do sing. (since the song is about their lives as trainees, i believe the phrase either refers to the other members, or it could be their future selves telling their young, trainee selves to not give up on themselves. either way, it’s some powerful stuff, and the staccato chords work to underline every single word.)
 
as this melodic phrase happens practically before every new section of the song - verse, chorus, post-chorus - we expect it to occur before the bridge too, but it doesn’t! human brains are designed to pick up on patterns, so when something shatters a comfortable flow we are caught off guard. in this case the music flows smoothly into the bridge instead of following the pattern we have grown used to. the two types of transitions - choppy staccato and smooth sailing - are stark contrasts of each other, which makes the transition into the bridge that much more impactful. 

let’s take a look at what happens lyrically in the song:
 
i want to fly now
like peter pan that flies for eternity (fly fly fly)
i want to become a star
like that clear sweat that broke out for the first time
 
taehyun’s talking about wanting to fly right as we enter the bridge, and because of the smooth transition it feels like we’re soaring into this section. there are no jerky stops this time, just a continuous, very satisfying glide - this is called text painting; when what happens in the lyrics is reflected in the music.
 
furthermore, the notes that taehyun and kai are hitting in the bridge are the highest in the entire song, peaking at shipeo. they’re hitting a D, and coincidentally enough the lowest note in the song also happens to be a D:
 
in the mirror soge miro
 
however, these two notes span across two octaves, which is pretty far. in other words, it is super mega text painting: taehyun and kai are talking about flying, and becoming a star in the sky, while the song is tonally at its highest point!
 
at this point of the song the instrumentation is a lot less sparse. the instruments have filtered in one at a time with the electric guitar coming in during the first chorus, a bass during the second verse etc. etc., but everything becomes a lot more prominent in the bridge, making it even more powerful - we’re building up to something!

when listening to the bridge, you might also notice how the melody moves:

ijen nalgo shipeo
yeongweoneul naneun piteopaencheoreom (fly fly fly)
byeori dwego shipeo
cheoeum heullyeotteon geu malgeun ttamcheoreom

at ijen nalgo shipeo we move upwards. then we gradually fall back down at yeongweoneul naneun piteopaencheoreom. at the next line we attempt to climb up again, and finally at cheoeum heullyeotteon geu malgeun ttamcheoreom we start descending but we end at a note a bit higher than the note we'd ended at previously. it's like we are trying to climb a cliff, slide down and get up to try again. it's an aural image of struggling to reach something, and being a little closer to out destination that we'd been at the beginning.
 
then, right before the final chorus there’s a break where everything just stops briefly. we’re going up and up, lyrically, melodically, instrumentation is growing in intensity, and then we just stop - our expectations have been flipped.  the break isn’t long enough for the anticipation to die however, and then the final chorus finally hits, and the pay-off is super rewarding:  the drums, which have been absent for the entire song make their entrance, there’s adlibs and stuff, (and i actually lied earlier as it turns out, because the adlibs go a little above the high D in the bridge, but i mean. it’s fine, they’re adlibs, they’re supposed to be high. besides they aren’t nearly as loud as the main vocals). there’s also a steelguitar or something like that, which kind of makes it sound like a country song, but that’s kind of besides the point. 
 
so what does this mean?
 
by the end of the song it feels like we’ve navigated through the maze and reached the place we’re supposed to be, which really reflects txt’s journey from being trainees to making it as idols. of course, their journey is still very much ongoing - they’ve been idols for two years, but they’ve cleared the first obstacles, and through this song they’ve taken us with them on this first part of their journey. they have not only told us about their struggles, but carried us listeners on their wings and shown us the entire maze.
 
... at least, that's my take on it - of course, interpretations are individual. regardless, mitm is a great song, and You Should Totally Go Listen To It Right Now And Notice The Things I Pointed Out, ooooh you wanna do that so badly

dayflies

best internet blog on the internet (after spirits-and-such) (and only in the years 2011-2016)